Sob

by Cecilia Woloch

Sometimes it’s hard not to be ashamed of being human, being alive.
Sometimes I drive alone at night and park my truck and drop my head
onto the steering wheel and sob. Snot and tears falling onto the skirt
of the summer dress I’ve worn too thin, the dress I’ve worn too many
summers, the dress I love and can’t give up. Sometimes I wonder what
I’ve done wrong, if I’ve somehow fucked up everything. Then I just want
my mother back, barefoot in the kitchen at 3 a.m. Sometimes I call out
to my father, too, but he shakes his head, he’s dead, now there’s nothing
he can do. Sometimes I think a kind of curse has fallen on those I love –
my sister whose only child is gone, my brother who walks with shoulders
bowed, my sister who needs new teeth, my sister who lies awake all night,
my brother who says he’s sorry he just can’t listen anymore, and the kids
who wish we would all be happy again, so one is writing a book, she says.
Sometimes I think, poison in the blood. I think of how I gave myself to a man
who’d have broken my bones. I think suffering only leads to more suffering,
so, I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. And then I just want to rest
my head against a stranger’s chest and sleep. When there are so many dead
who refuse to speak. When the hushed green hum of the world begins
to sound like there’s no one god.