Exhume

YOUR EPITAPH IS WRITTEN IN THE BAGS UNDER MY EYES. Each night I lay in bed. Body curled like a question mark around the space you used to fill. Moonlight paints the bed in stripes, and I think of the way it made your skin glow. You looked lit from within, like the moon inhabited your body, lent you its luminescence for a short while. Now the light looks flat, the gray of slurried snow on the side of the road, dead.

Thoughts of you attack me everywhere I go, at any time, at every time. Memories jump out of the shadows like bogeymen. Sudden and intrusive. My reaction is sometimes so violent that I blackout. The effect of overworked adrenal glands in a body broken by despair and dearth of sleep. I come to, crumpled like a used tissue on the floor, shaking, crying, and like any proper junkie—wondering when I can get my next hit.

I miss you in new and surprising ways every day. Washing my face, taking out the trash, seeing a commercial for a car we almost bought last year. I do not eat the casseroles neighbors leave at our doorstep. I open them, imagine your reactions—the only sustenance I need—and then place them on the floor for the cat. I do not think he understands that you are gone. I do not, can not, will not, so how could he? I can hear you insisting that he’s smarter than he seems, and I feel the ghost of a familiar argument like the kicking of a phantom limb. There is too little time in the world to argue with your loved ones, but all the time in the world to argue with the ghost of your dead wife. It seems that only grief can last forever.

This night is no different except in the way that every night lately has been different. Brutally, mercilessly, relentlessly. I stare at the wall and attempt to fall asleep. Years ago, a therapist told me sticking to a routine was important when dealing with depression. I cannot stand looking at a calendar or a clock—doing the mental math of how long I’ve lived without you would ruin me. Instead, I track time in the way the shadows travel across our bedroom wall, the number of casserole dishes that stack in the corner of our kitchen, the buzzing of notifications that pile up on both of our phones, still plugged in on our nightstands.

Time has always moved differently around you. The night we met, it moved fastslow. The basement bar was crowded and loud. Walking down the steps—into the dim and din—felt like coming home. I was there to cover the band—the type of assignment my boss always gave to me because it wasn’t worth the time of someone more experienced.

The trick is to pay attention to the audience as much as the band. When I saw a stool open up at the bar, I elbowed my way through the crowd and jogged the last few feet to plant myself on it. I looked around and confirmed the view was perfect—close enough to the stage to hear different band members individually, but far enough that I could gauge the crowd’s reaction. Eyes sweeping back to the bar, I noticed you for the first time. You sat on the stool next to me, mouth turned up at one corner in a shadow of a smile.

“Quite eager to get in that seat, weren’t you?” Those were your first words to me, and they have been repeated in several iterations throughout our relationship. (Quite eager to get in my pants, weren’t you?)

I defensively replied that it was a great view. When you smiled at my response, my eye caught on your front incisor which was twisted slightly.  My gaze lingered there for a few moments, wondering how only one tooth could be misaligned in a set of otherwise straight ones. When I looked back to your eyes, I saw that you were blushing. Which made me blush. You have a knack for making me blush.

I tried to regain some professionalism and focused on collecting information for my article. I asked if you knew the band – you didn’t. If you had been to a concert at this bar before—you hadn’t. Why you were here. You motioned to a girl across the bar who was leaning against the counter in a way that showed most of her chest off to the bartender.

You told me about her and the bartender that wouldn’t commit, and then a story about your terrible attempts at being a wing-woman that made us both laugh. I started sharing a story about my friend from college that spilled two beers in my lap while trying to convince a girl to go out with me. Before I could finish, you declared that the best stories require props and ordered us two beers. The bartender distractedly set the bottles in front of us, unopened, and returned to your friend, which we both agreed was an excellent sign. Then we agreed that calling him back to open them would make you an even worse wing-woman.

I reached over to your beer and cracked the cap off with my ring, a trick I learned in hopes it would impress women. I hope that it did, I never asked you. Not to be outdone, you grabbed my beer, held the lip of the cap against the side of the bar, and smacked it off. We cheersed and spent the rest of the night trying to open bottles of beer in the most creative way. You won by convincing a man to pry a cap off with his teeth.

We talked about a variety of topics, drank an assortment of beer, and paid attention to none of the music. And I wanted to do it all again, forever. I got your number before walking home, and as I laid in bed, I thought about how much time had passed in so little time. At the beginning of the night, I was a music journalist who knew nothing of you or your thoughts on prison abolition or appendectomies. Now I was someone different, someone changed by you and by the thing that was between us. Only a few hours had passed, but it felt like I had known you for weeks or more. Already I could imagine you as a part of my life. Fastslow.

Now time feels the opposite—slowfast. I am hurtling away from the life we had together like I’m facing the wrong direction in a train. Watching the world fly by around me, but I can only focus on what I’ve left behind.

Waking up the day after your funeral was horrible. I rolled over for a morning-breath kiss and then remembered. Eight hours passed without a thought of you, and that was more painful than the shock of your empty side of the bed. I want to be vividly conscious of every moment without you, in a way I wasn’t when you were alive. I haven’t slept since.

Instead, I spend all night deciding which memories to play through like my favorite home movies. Memories with the quality of film. Grainy and rose-tinted. Our smiles look wider, jokes seem funnier, we both look fitter. When I tire of rewinding and replaying our memories, I quiz myself. What was your favorite book? Your favorite concert venue? Your biggest fear? I call it the Newlydead game and then ask myself: would you laugh?

My favorite question to ask is: what would we be doing if you were here right now? You would be coming home from work in sunflower-yellow scrubs, and we would order egg drop soup and veggie lo mein. Fall asleep to the sound of rainforests or thunderstorms or something else queued up to be soothing. Maybe you wouldn’t have a shift today. We would heat up lasagne with garlic bread and watch a movie, your cold toes shoved between me and the couch cushions. Have sex on the sofa like we were still in college.

That was the rhythm of most nights together. Comforting and domestic and occasionally boring. We talked about doing exciting things. Of traveling to different countries or road-tripping out west. Of learning to woodwork or how to speak French. I would trade every exciting thing in my life, in my future, for another evening at home with you. Wednesday—our date night—was a tradition you instated once life started to get busy and we no longer went to random basement concerts. Instead, we drank beer and listened to a new album all the way through from the comfort of our home. A paradise simply because of your presence.

It was my turn to pick before you died. The six-pack was in the fridge and the album was queued and you were gone. Now I can only play music to your grave and hope you can hear it six feet under. If you were here, you would tell me to do it anyway. You believed in the eerie and unknown. Dealt tarot cards with your friends and bought a side table printed like an Ouija board. When I laughed at the thought of ghosts, you told me I would regret it when you haunted me. I wish you would.

I look at my phone to check the date. A Wednesday. If a spirit realm exists, this is a sign. I order a ride and gather our date night supplies. A speaker, a six-pack, and a blanket to sit on. Thankfully, the driver does not try to make small talk. I do not know how to talk about you without making other people uncomfortable. I do not care enough to try.

When I was younger, I held my breath when driving past graveyards. A superstition about not letting spirits in. Once I am out of the car, I take deep inhales—hoping your spirit will inhabit my lungs. Settle in the bevels of my bronchi. Curl up and haunt the space adjacent to my heart. With each beat of my heart, blood would flow to my extremities, imbibed with oxygen and your essence. At least at a molecular level, we would be reunited.

I exhale and walk down winding paths towards the back of the graveyard.The sky is a bruise, blues and purples mixing at the edge of the horizon. I want to reach out and press my fingers into the boundary. Feel the aching pressure and dig my fingernails in further, turning the feeling to pain. See if I can deepen the colors, or introduce new ones. Mauve to violet, add in ochre and olive. Instead, I weave my way through gravestones towards you. It almost feels the same.

The interval between graves grows larger the farther back I walk. Like the deepening space between breaths before falling asleep. A breath in at a grave, hold it until my feet cross the threshold of another, and then release. In and out, repeated at a ritardando until I reach a grassy area with a large maple, a semi-populated bed of flowers, and a single grave. And there is no next breath to take. The last one is suspended, caught in my throat. I have to swallow it down, like a bad pill. Or the reality of your death.

I approach the soft blanket of overturned earth and place the six-pack of beer at the base. The bottles clink gently together, the only sound in the otherwise empty graveyard. I arrange myself at the base of your grave, across from where your headstone will be. It won’t come for another few weeks, so for now you lie in a grave like an unmade bed.

I take out the speaker and queue up the album. Notes release into the air like moths into the night. Eyes closed, swaying slightly, I let the music entomb me. I open two beers and place one at the foot of your grave. Beer simmers across my tongue, and I imagine you behind the red veil of my eyelids. Sitting there, peeling the labels off of bottles and letting them fall to the ground like a snake shedding its skin. I keep my eyes closed to maintain the illusion.

We always listen to an album all the way through before discussing. Let our brains steep in the lyrics and melody. Music turned meditation. So I drink, and I listen, and I focus on the familiar. The hiss-snap of bottles opening, the wonder in hearing a lyric akin to poetry, bass line pounding in my chest like a second heartbeat, the floaty feeling of several beers on an empty stomach.

The last song finishes, and when I open my eyes, I expect you to be sitting there. If not in flesh than at least in mist and music precipitated around your presence. Instead, I see a graveyard sepulchered in darkness and the absence of a headstone. I hate that there is no marker for your grave. You are not anonymous. You are mine and I am yours, and no one passing by this grave would be able to tell.

I stand and stumble. My head feels heavier than my body, and the world spins around me. The world is always spinning around me. It did not pause for your death and it will not pause for mine. A glance back at the bottles, all empty save the one I reserved for you. I take a few breaths to center myself and then walk over to the bed of flowers a few yards away. I drop to my knees and plunge my hand into the soft airy dirt. Wrap my hands around roots and tug. Resistance and then the snap and release of broken bonds. I pull and I pull and I pull until I have a pile of uprooted plants, which I pile into the cradle created by pulling my shirt away from my body.

I return to you and present my bouquet. Who says romance is dead? I deposit them at the head of your grave and begin digging. Dirt clogs under my nails. Tears blur my vision. I need to do this for you. I need others to see these flowers when they pass your grave. Know you exist. Knew you existed. My nail tears and I focus on the sting of raw skin exposed. The pain is nothing except something to focus on.

I have felt very little since you died. Not happiness, hunger, or hate. But even now the wound of your absence feels hours old. So deep it must be to the bone. It’s the kind of injury that leaves no room for discussion of healing, only talk of pain management. There is no managing this pain. The only thing worse than the wound is allowing it to heal. I will pick at the scab of your memory every day so it is fresh and raw and oozing.

My muscles burn as I shovel soil aside and it feels like penance. Or a bargain. If I can move enough dirt, experience enough pain, maybe I can have you back. I am hauling this dirt away and it is added to a golden scale that someone else is monitoring. If I get far enough, I get another chance. You: Eurydice. Me: Orpheus. I will not glance back. Will not lose you twice.

I wipe away tears and grave dirt smears across my cheeks like war paint. Music continues playing, providing a rhythm for me to match. So I do. I dig and dig and dig. Arms tremble, knuckles bleed. Into the night, until the phone dies and your dirge stops playing. Only then do I collapse. Two pillows of dirt discarded on either side of your grave. Either side of me.

I am the closest to you I’ve been in days. Less than four feet separate us and when I close my eyes I hear the cadence of your breath. Better than any white noise machine. Your hands break through the earth—porcelain bones incandescent in the moonlight—and grab me. Pull me down. I sink through earth and wood and skin and bone until I am cradled in your skeletal embrace.

I stare into the chasm of your eye sockets and darkness spills out—resinous and gleaming. It sticks to both of us like tar. Seeps and spreads until we are both entombed. Future historians will find our bodies intertwined, like lovers in the ashy ruins of Pompeii. The last thing I see is your twisted dogtooth before darkness and sleep block everything else out. It is an exhausting endeavor to live without you.