Emma Cousins 'Poem Absolution'

Absolution

By Emma Cousins

1.

Her room smells faintly of flowers (but mostly of antiseptic).

She sits in the bed, propped up by pillows. Her hair fans out on the crisp white pillowcase, immaculately brushed and washed. She stares straight ahead, still except for the slow rise and fall of her chest. A beautiful line of stitches traces their way around her head, curling behind her left ear, ending somewhere on the back of her skull.

You’re disappointed.

They told you she was doing better. That she had moved up a level on whatever it is they use to measure things like this. But they lied. Sure, her eyes are open, but there’s nothing behind them.

You reach out a hand to stroke the thin margin of peach-fuzz around the stitches, but your breath hitches. Arm falters. Unblinking eyes

(That doesn’t stop you from going home and smashing all the glasses in your apartment one by one).

2.

The next time you visit, somebody has already taken your seat.

It’s an older woman, whose greying hair is pulled back into a tight bun. The way she’s sitting, so poised and still, reminds you of an aging ballerina. A trembling rosary dangles from her hands, and cloud of mothballs and jasmine lingers around her.

Whether she genuinely doesn’t notice your presence, or just chooses to ignore it, is unknown. Hesitantly, you take a step forward.

“Go to hell.”

There’s a squeak as she rises from her chair, lips pressed together in a quivering line.

“I said get out!”

Beads clatter on the floor, and you heed the warning.

3.

There’s a sickness inside of you. It sits at the bottom of your stomach like a snake, squeezing your lungs and whispering cruel things up your throat. It’s the reason you yell so loudly, love so harshly. For a long time, you hated the monster in your belly.

Until you met her.

She was sick, too. The same oily slick in your gut covered hers as well, telling her the same lies and making her hurt people who didn’t deserve