Bone Setting
Take pieces of your writing, cut them out, and move them around. See what you create/what you notice.
Bone Setting
i.
I cling to my grief because it’s the place where I can land, the place where you are, the place where I keep you with me.
Moving forward feels like I’m dropping pieces of you behind me, casually letting you fall like breadcrumbs, the distance from my pain becoming a slippery slope toward my forgetting.
I’m unable to move, unable to breathe. Horrified and frightened each time something shifts, each time something falls.
Will I forget what it felt like to hold your hand? What the warmth of it felt like in mine, cradling those slender fingers and delicate bones?
Will I lose the feeling of what it was like to scoop you up and gather you in my arms, your oxygen mask finally removed, that long-awaited moment when I was given access to all the parts of your sweet and broken body?
Will I forget how it felt to have your lifeless face cradled in my hands, my forehead pressed to yours, as I said to you over and over again, “I’ll never let you go, I’ll never let you go, you’re with me forever, I’ll never let you go?”
I polish and shine my quills.
I’m not willing to let you slip through.
ii.
Green. The color of the Christmas tree that stood outside her door, it’s bright white light steady and unchanging as she took her last breath.
It continued to shine - an obstinate reminder that the world goes on, even when yours goes dark.
The uncomfortable truth that I bring you is that you are powerless.
I won’t let you forget that my sister is dead.
iii.
What you don’t know is that I spend so much of my time looking for pieces of her, collecting memories and items like broken treasures, trying desperately to reassemble them into some semblance of her and yet knowing that they will never add up to all that she was.
That truth is not a smoldering ache - it is a heart-rending, all-consuming fire. Teach me how to breathe while that burns around me.
I can’t bear to be part of the world, to risk being misunderstood and overlooked, to risk losing everything.
I gather all my comforts around me, hoping they will protect me. Knowing that they can’t. Knowing that I can’t stay here forever.
I remain frozen. Broken. Unsure. Waiting.
iv.
I need the trees to hear all of this, to be there with their steadiness and strength. I walk these wooded paths now, looking for you. Feeling for you.
These trees know your name.
How lucky I was to speak two unspoken languages - the language of sisters, the language of nature.
We’d bathe ourselves in memories of simpler times, a time when all was right with the world, when everything held promise and possibility. A time before anything bad had ever happened to us.
We always laughed, even when it was hard. Even when life broke our hearts.
Thank God we lived as though we could never leave each other, as though our time together would never end.
We’d turn towards each other, eyes dancing with joy, sharing the togetherness of the moment.
Always turning toward each other.
v.
Green. The bits of moss that I saw on my hike yesterday, standing out amongst all the dead and hibernating things.
I noticed the green and thought, “There it is. Those little bits of life are hanging on. They are still finding their way through.”
Until that life arives, I’ll sit outside the cage for this animal heart of mine. Let her know I’m here. Reach through the bars and hold her hand. Let her know that somehow it’s going to be okay, even though I can’t tell her how.
Tell my heart that I will stay here, with her always, until the exit appears.
vi.
I imagine you curled up next to me. I pretend we are still tracing letters on each other’s backs, still decoding each other’s secret messages.
Your shape lives in me. I call it forth more and more these days, constantly on the lookout for ways to make it more visible. I’ll be calling it forth until the day I die, looking for your shape everywhere.
Nothing came before you; no part of my life will be untouched by you. You are my insides, woven into every part of me.
You taught me how to grow something from the charred ashes. You mapped the way for me.
You would say to me, “Seester, I love you. I’m here. I’m with you.”
You’d tell me to look up. You’d tell me not to miss this.
Bone Setting
i.
I cling to my grief because it’s the place where I can land, the place where you are, the place where I keep you with me.
Moving forward feels like I’m dropping pieces of you behind me, casually letting you fall like breadcrumbs, the distance from my pain becoming a slippery slope toward my forgetting.
I’m unable to move, unable to breathe. Horrified and frightened each time something shifts, each time something falls.
Will I forget what it felt like to hold your hand? What the warmth of it felt like in mine, cradling those slender fingers and delicate bones?
Will I lose the feeling of what it was like to scoop you up and gather you in my arms, your oxygen mask finally removed, that long-awaited moment when I was given access to all the parts of your sweet and broken body?
Will I forget how it felt to have your lifeless face cradled in my hands, my forehead pressed to yours, as I said to you over and over again, “I’ll never let you go, I’ll never let you go, you’re with me forever, I’ll never let you go?”
I polish and shine my quills.
I’m not willing to let you slip through.
ii.
Green. The color of the Christmas tree that stood outside her door, it’s bright white light steady and unchanging as she took her last breath.
It continued to shine - an obstinate reminder that the world goes on, even when yours goes dark.
The uncomfortable truth that I bring you is that you are powerless.
I won’t let you forget that my sister is dead.
iii.
What you don’t know is that I spend so much of my time looking for pieces of her, collecting memories and items like broken treasures, trying desperately to reassemble them into some semblance of her and yet knowing that they will never add up to all that she was.
That truth is not a smoldering ache - it is a heart-rending, all-consuming fire. Teach me how to breathe while that burns around me.
I can’t bear to be part of the world, to risk being misunderstood and overlooked, to risk losing everything.
I gather all my comforts around me, hoping they will protect me. Knowing that they can’t. Knowing that I can’t stay here forever.
I remain frozen. Broken. Unsure. Waiting.
iv.
I need the trees to hear all of this, to be there with their steadiness and strength. I walk these wooded paths now, looking for you. Feeling for you.
These trees know your name.
How lucky I was to speak two unspoken languages - the language of sisters, the language of nature.
We’d bathe ourselves in memories of simpler times, a time when all was right with the world, when everything held promise and possibility. A time before anything bad had ever happened to us.
We always laughed, even when it was hard. Even when life broke our hearts.
Thank God we lived as though we could never leave each other, as though our time together would never end.
We’d turn towards each other, eyes dancing with joy, sharing the togetherness of the moment.
Always turning toward each other.
v.
Green. The bits of moss that I saw on my hike yesterday, standing out amongst all the dead and hibernating things.
I noticed the green and thought, “There it is. Those little bits of life are hanging on. They are still finding their way through.”
Until that life arives, I’ll sit outside the cage for this animal heart of mine. Let her know I’m here. Reach through the bars and hold her hand. Let her know that somehow it’s going to be okay, even though I can’t tell her how.
Tell my heart that I will stay here, with her always, until the exit appears.
vi.
I imagine you curled up next to me. I pretend we are still tracing letters on each other’s backs, still decoding each other’s secret messages.
Your shape lives in me. I call it forth more and more these days, constantly on the lookout for ways to make it more visible. I’ll be calling it forth until the day I die, looking for your shape everywhere.
Nothing came before you; no part of my life will be untouched by you. You are my insides, woven into every part of me.
You taught me how to grow something from the charred ashes. You mapped the way for me.
You would say to me, “Seester, I love you. I’m here. I’m with you.”
You’d tell me to look up. You’d tell me not to miss this.