PEAR, RISE, TOMORROW

Tomorrow has been lost

everyone, tomorrow

is gone.

I cannot think of a way to live

anymore. this, the fear,

has come true.

to lose is to sink. To sink

is to be unable to rise.

I cannot sleep

or shower my pear shaped body, which

I have spent a life hating. I cannot eat.

The sorrow is the thing that crept

in my dreams and now

in my waking hours

has taken hold

keeps my

stomach

full.

Grief is tomorrow. Another day.

They say hope is the last to die. My great grandmother was called Hope. She died at 102. I pray to die sooner. Because tomorrow is a burden I cannot bear any longer. The Pears in China were juicy. Their aroma dribbled down my chin. I was an unhappy child. Turbulent. I am an unhappy adult. Perhaps that's why everything sours and rots and turns to shit. My father did not cry at the funeral. When they closed the casket he whispered, good bye mommy. I sobbed too loudly. Tomorrow is gone for her, perhaps for me, perhaps for us. Tomorrow is a facemask, and no hugs, it is a box of belongings that have been left, it is the whiff of marlboro lights and coffee. Tomorrow has been lost forever.

Larissa Barddal Fantini

(edited by Crista Siglin)