—I DON’T WANT TO BE ME TODAY

 

 

You Have No New Messages

 

At the Grief Center we share everything, including our spleens and leftover spinal fluid because we’ve learned how to step outside of our distress and exoskeletons. One person offers up her waist-down bones stuffed in a burlap sack. “They can’t control me any longer,” he says, claiming Imposter Syndrome. Another uncovers a silver room service dome, saying, “See, he really did steal my heart,” blood popping hot in the center of our ill-formed circle. The instructor huffs on his air-filled pipe, rolling his hand like a wave or propeller, More, More. Let’s hear more. The dead child, who is a ghost, hovers like a constipated cherub with nothing to divulge, occasionally dropping scat. Someone’s cell pings, then someone else’s, until the instructor relents and rolls his propeller hand again, Go ahead. Take it. Maybe it’s important. At last, a new ghost child enters late, every head turning, then applauding as if it’s the messiah, that toddler holding the steering wheel her mother was gripping when she drove them all off the bridge.