GABRIELA GONZALES
Haunted House
Before we start dating,
you tell me about this process
where they take someone’s ashes
and press them into a diamond
for their loved ones to wear on jewelry.
Would you ever do that?
you ask me.
Never,
I say.
That’s too far.
There is no one whose death
I would want haunting
my own living body,
wrapped around my finger,
imbedded in gold.
In December,
they put my sister’s ashes in
a little silver flower
and I wear it around my neck.
Since December,
I have been looking for any way possible
to by haunted by my sister.
My apartment is too empty
when I remember she never set foot in here,
there are too few of her ghosts
for me to want to sleep in these walls
alone.
The night my dad calls
and tells me that she’s stopped breathing,
I am kneeling in front of a mirror,
screaming to space or to God
and then she stops breathing for good
and the warped reflection is the hall of fun house mirrors
I got lost in as a child—
crying until my parents had to come rescue me
from so many strange versions of myself.
I tell my dad to stop lying to me.
The first time you kiss me is the day after
Death kisses my sister.
I cry in your kitchen
and then you reach for me
and then we are only reaching,
reaching.
I tell you how much she loved puzzles.
You buy her one for Christmas.
I read her poetry at the rosary,
kneeling at her casket,
I scream that someone needs to take her hair down,
she hated her hair up in barrettes,
she needs to be beautiful today,
I am so sorry,
I was so far away,
I say,
when you died,
I’m sorry everyone was there
but your sister
my sister died
in the bathroom of my parent’s house,
wrapped in my mom’s arms and
curled up on a dog bed.
When I walk through the halls,
I can’t feel her.
I start wearing her socks,
her shirts,
her jackets,
trying to haunt the place myself,
and when I’ve dug up so many ghosts
that I cannot tell the difference
between breath and phantasm,
you buy a plane ticket
and fly across the country to me.
When you tell me you see a future with me,
my mother cries
because my sister won’t be at my wedding.
I cry because if my sister hadn’t died,
I think I’d have forgotten to want to make her a bridesmaid,
if my sister hadn’t died,
I would never want ashes around my neck,
if my sister hadn’t died,
I wonder if I still would have flown out to you.
I take my necklace off in the shower
because I’m scared it might break
and I might be left without her again.
When I fly back home,
I forget it in the bathroom.
Your flight is canceled when mine takes off,
and you’re left alone with my family
in the house we’ve all haunted.
You send me a photo,
necklace in hand.
I’ll keep it safe
until I see you.
I think she would’ve liked you.
She was scared of men,
because of the one
who twisted her infant body
into pediatric stroke,
left her unable to speak,
left side frozen in place
and I too have been twisted
by broad shoulders,
pinned down
and voice stolen
and I too have been so afraid,
but your hands are whispers
on my body,
your hands are reaching and grasping on,
while I continue to collect every piece of my sister I can find left,
collect every guilt-ridden ghost and hang it around my own neck,
my love,
I’ve become such a haunted house
now that she’s gone.
When you hold me,
I feel you turn off your flashlight
and walk in anyway.
Gabriela Gonzales writes about the strangely beautiful tragedy that is human connection. She has had work featured in Awakened Voices Literary Magazine, Cosmonauts Avenue, Lost Balloon, Wigleaf, and other journals. She really appreciates giraffes, the oxford comma, and babies dressed like hipsters.