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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
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      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
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Daniele DeAngelis Walker

Something like the blues

VI. You are lying in a cemetery.
 
Completely above ground.
 
Completely alive.
 
You are lying, in a cemetery, completely alive, next to a grave.
 
You are lying in a cemetery, completely above ground, next to your grave.
 
And before now, I hated the word “lying.”
 
“What do you think?” you ask me. I wait a moment.
 
“You should cross your arms,” I reply.
 
“I just wanted to see if I would fit.”
 
 
I. I didn’t want to go to the doctor’s appointment with you.
 
Not because of you. Because I don’t like doctors. 

But you turned your eyes on me. “I need you,” you said. And even though one of your eyes is bluer than the other one, I can’t resist them.
 
So I went.
 
And now I know it’s a good thing I did. Because if I hadn’t, you’d have found out you were dying by yourself.
 
 
V. There is nothing worse than being told there’s nothing you can do. I wonder if you know that.
 
The doctor said it, and I didn’t believe it.
 
The second doctor said it, and I didn’t believe it.
 
The doctor said it again, and I didn’t believe it.
 
You said it, and I didn’t want to believe it.
 
There is nothing you can do. Of course you know that.
 
There is nothing I can do.
 
Except drive.
 
Well, except guide your arms through all of your sweaters, and guide your buttons through all of your buttonholes, and guide you the insurmountable impossible sixty two steps across our floor. Except hold you up. Except hold you up, just to let you down. To let you down impossibly carefully. To let you down into the car. Into the passenger seat of your own car.
 
Drive, even though I didn’t want to.
 
Know where I’m going, even though I didn’t want to.
 
Keep from crying.
 
Get out of the car.
 
Even if I don’t want to.
 
 
II. And if I’m being honest, I just don’t want you to die.
 
 
VII. “Are you scared?”
 
I think you’re probably asleep. But I still hold my breath in case you answer.
 
“No.”
 
I hold my breath some more. “No as in you never have been? Or no as in you aren’t anymore?”
 
I think you’re probably asleep.
 
“I’ve never.” You’re still breathing. “I’ve never had a reason to be.” Breathing or sleeping. “The Grim Reaper.” Breathing. “The Grim Reaper and I,” breath, “are just.” Breath. “The Grim Reaper and I are just acquaintances.”
 
I can’t stop the tears anymore.
 
You can’t roll over anymore.
 
You can’t touch me anymore. You can’t feel me anymore. I can’t see you anymore.
 
But one of your eyes is greener than the other, and so I can’t stop.
 
“I love you.”
 
I think you’re probably asleep.
 
 
IV. “Let’s go to the cemetery.”
 
Your voice comes out of a silence longer than my ability to count.
 
But I never forgot what it sounded like.
 
I walk across the floor.
 
“Why?” I ask you. And I don’t know how I intended it to come out, but I didn’t intend it to come out like that. And I don’t know more than I know. And I forgot what my own voice sounded like.
 
“There’s just something I want to do.” You swallow.
 
I see the effort.
 
“Need to do.”
 
“There’s nothing more you can do.”
 
“Well.”
 
I walk across the floor.
 
I bend down to reach your eye level. I feel bigger and smaller than I have ever been, all at once. My hands rest on my legs. And I want to say something, but I don’t know what it is. So I just look.
 
One of your eyes is bluer than the other one.
 
I don’t know when my hands left my legs and found your hands.
 
You don’t know either.
 
“I need this. And I need you.”
 
One of your eyes is bluer than the other one, and because of it, I can’t resist them.
 
I walk across the floor. “Okay,” I hear myself breathe. I turn off the alarm clock.
 
 
III.v. I know there’s nothing more I can do. But you are quiet, and one of your eyes is different than the other one, and I just want to give you everything. I just want to do every thing.
 
I just want to do something.
 
So I pick up the alarm clock.
 
 
III. Our home looks nothing like our home anymore. And I should know, because I was the one who tore it to pieces.
 
I was the one who moved and bartered and broke all the furniture to make way for the hospital bed I’m not supposed to sleep in. I was the one who rearranged and calculated inches, to make room for you and for this. I was the one who wrote about every time we touched in case it turned out to be the last. I was the one who did everything I could, even when I knew there was nothing more I could do.
 
Even when I knew you’d be leaving soon.
 
 
VIII. I call for you even when I know you’ve already left.
 
 
X. My phone rings at four oh two in the morning.
 
But it isn’t you.
 
So I don’t pick it up.
 
 
III.vi. I want to do everything, but giving you my days doesn’t give you any more of your own. I want to do everything, but I keep knocking into the bed I sleep in even though I’m not supposed to. I want to do everything, but I can’t stop the tears. I want to do everything, but everything I can do isn’t enough.
 
I want to do every thing, but I can’t stop. 

 
 
XI. You are lying in a cemetery.
 
 
 
--
Daniele DeAngelis Walker is twenty-three years young, but her soul feels much older. An avid lover of colors and words, she graduated from Drew University with specialized honors in creative writing. She works in the publishing industry and lives in New Jersey with the fiancée she never thought she’d have. Her work can be found in Tell Us A Story, Fuse Literary’s anthology The Burden Of Light: Poems on Illness And Loss, and is forthcoming in The Nassau Review.

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  • Home
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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
      • Christy Lee Rogers Spring 2024
      • Erika Lynet Salvador Spring 2024
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
      • Isabelle Doyle Spring 2024
      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
      • Kelly Gray Spring 2024
      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
      • Mina Khan Spring 2024
      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
      • Cate Latimer Spring 2024
      • BEE LB Spring 2024
      • Grace Marie Liu​ Spring 2024
      • Sarah Mills Spring 2024
      • Faisal Mohyuddin 2024
      • Marcus Myers Spring 2024
      • Mike Puican Spring 2024
      • Sarah Sorensen Spring 2024
      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
      • Natalie Tombasco Spring 2024
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2024
      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
      • Jian Kim Fall 2024
      • Robb Kunz Fall 2024
      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
      • Angie Macri Fall 2024
      • Gary McDowell Fall 2024
      • Sam Moe Fall 2024
      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
      • Elizabeth O'Connell- Thompson Fall 2024
      • Olatunde Osinaike Fall 2024
      • Jessica Pierce Fall 2024
      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
      • Isaac Richards Fall 2024
      • Robyn Schelenz Fall 2024
      • Christopher Shipman Fall 2024
      • Alex Tretbar Fall 2024
      • Ruth Williams Fall 2024
      • Shannon K. Winston Fall 2024
      • Wendy Wisner Fall 2024
      • Anne Gerard Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
      • ​Morganne Howell Fall 2024
      • Matt Paczkowski Fall 2024
      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
      • Paul Simmons Spring 2025
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2025
      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
      • Jessica Mosher Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025