The Art of Reconstruction

Originally appeared in White Wall Review

I say my grandmother smoked until the day she died,
but that’s not really true.
The truth is
something in her died days before her body did.
The day she died, she wasn’t even a shell of herself.
I think my version sounds kinder.

I say I wouldn’t change a thing,
but that’s not really true.
The truth is
I’d break my bones and use them to build a bridge to the past
if it were possible. I’d
rip my eyelashes out one by one
to use as thread. To sew us together.
I would bend each of my fingernails back
to fashion nails. To try to hang memory on a wall.
To keep the house of us from falling apart.

When you ask me how I am, I say, “I’m fine.”
But that’s not really true.
The truth is
I don’t know.
And when I say I don’t know, it’s the only truth I have.
But I do know you don’t want to hear about how my grandmother died,
or anything about my bones.
So, I say I’m fine,
because I’m fine sounds far kinder.