Once upon a stone, there was a boy who saw a dead body. In a casket. In a room filled with other people. Felt the knife of the universe slice through the relationship that had been there from the beginning. Something constant and gracious. Important. Awe and discomfort at those willing to hold his father's cold hands. A clenching of the heart. Clenches the whole body in fact. Someone begins to see.

Define "lament".

It's cruel isn't it. To stare at Love wearing Death's face.

So he walks away from the gravesite, his heart hammering against the offensive sun. Years later, years and years, he knows that funerals are supposed to celebrate life. Too long to go though. In the one moment, he feels cracks open, fault lines, fissures where he thought it was whole. Once. He can't imagine what material might be used to fix any of it. A whole life. Gone.

He holds his heart like it doesn't matter. Casually crashing against concrete doorways. He says he doesn't stumble. He's just always drunk on the pain. Since he only has a little feeling left now, he only ever offers just a slice. Enough to push open a few doors. Microscopic sometimes as he veers through the world of longing and confusion and no father. He hates when others talk about their dads.

He vanishes then.

I'm in the window. No shirt. Not with the blazing heat of the day still lingering on the sill. Foreign cedars, elms as tall as the house, a lilac bush on either side. There might be a moon. I don't know. I didn't always keep track of what phase we were in.

I don't know how to let go yet. I don't know that anyone sees anything but the bright red wound. To look at me is to see an autopsied torso. I think anyway. Leading the way with a busted heart and eyes that can't hold the light. The Y clamp invisible. Only viscera exposed and dwarfing the boy inside of it. Looking down, all I'd see was what was missing. Can't see the skin that had already begun to stitch itself together.

So I assume it is this way for everyone. Don't you understand. It's all always all over. For everyone right.

Everyone is casual with their heart. They've all been wounded.

Once. At least the once?

I wonder if crying would come with more relief if we shed blood each time. You ever think about "tearing up" and "tearing open"? The stress is different, the long "a" sound of the second instance. Ripping through the chest. Exposing the insides. Maybe even dripping. Yeah, crying does this too. Maybe the similarities are intentional. Leaks in either case. Tears fall to tear it out. Spelt the same. The stress is different. The feeling…can you cry hard enough your guts come out?

No. That isn't true. It's not always over.

A life ended when someone was twelve. Life, in general, kept on going. You try to tell yourself this. Sometimes it still feels hollow. You cover your eyes with your fingers spread ever so slightly. Whatever doesn't make it through those cracks doesn't exist.

You can look at people like this. See only what you think you're shown. And maybe, maybe sometimes that's all they want you to see anyway. The way we choose sunglasses. Whatever is exposed is what we want exhibited.

But there is delight and joy and days when nothing hits you. When you sit on a roof with a happy glass of tequila and the wind and sun and clouds all take you somewhere pleasant. You can look on the ruins then and know they are the past. They aren't going anywhere. But they aren't your home either. Home is in beating hearts. Home is in the smiles that can't be faked. Home is a building forever under construction. But no less beautiful for all that.

You can bring yourself to whatever precipice you want. Sometimes you'll fall. Sometimes you'll go because of the magnetism of the view. Sometimes you'll be changed. Sometimes the stone only shifts a millimeter.

Keep walking or rolling. If you've got a wheelchair life ain't over then either. The constraints have changed. Sure. I managed to put away my powerchair years ago. And life goes on.

I'm not proud of the way I've always dealt with challenges. With hurt, with abandonment, with death. But I'm not consigned to burn just because it feels that way. Or rather I can choose to burn with a different light and still go get brighter yet. However broken I sometimes feel. I don't have to always be on my way to the dull colour of ash.

Let me confess it, I am half in love with ruin. But it is hard, it is too hard to bear, without due warning. — Randolph Stow

J.D. Harms 2024