The wooden coffin decoration
is trimmed with orange, frames
a glittery orange skeleton.
When I first saw him I knew
he was mine. Orange, the color
of happiness. Bones, the symbol
of death.
I went to the home goods store
because I wanted to honor death, or rather,
a specific dead boy. I wanted to celebrate life,
I wanted to lean into happiness
When I first saw him
I knew he was mine
What I’ve realized, years later,
is that if he must be dead I will live
for both of us: hair graying,
weight accumulating, shitty tattoos
multiplying. Waffles and black bean burgers
and scallops. Watching movies. Reading Plath
and disagreeing about it. Even gossiping
a little bit.
I will seize every opportunity he cannot have.
I will access joy in radical defiance of death.
Orange in the face of bones. Glitter
everywhere in the face
of suicide.
Pills, alcohol, knives and guns,
my teeth chipped from the gunmetal
will grin and grin into the night.
I look into the happy skeleton
and burn the candle orange with reiki
energy for JOY JOY run my hands
over the green the purple beads
earned at every suicide
prevention parade.
The skeleton and the boy
were mine, and joy will become mine,
too, the taste foreign and bright like the cold flesh
of an orange after a long night
of the soul.
Callie S. Blackstone writes both poetry and prose. Her debut chapbook sing eternal is available through Bottlecap Press. Her online home is calliesblackstone.com.