Jarfly

When your kidneys shut down and a machine began to filter your blood: 8-hours, three times a week, a day after to recover – your life an exhausted cycle of hope and despair. When a new-to-you kidney was sewn into your body, your dead, gray kidneys pushed aside to make room for the bright-with-blood imposter.

They say you should hold your breath when passing the cemetery, ​ but I do not fear the reach of the dead. When she died—Christmas morning, an unforecasted veil of snow-- our chests were undone. I learned the sounds a body makes as it unhooks itself. Each begins with breath.

When a rock star dies, the moon goes hungry. When a rock star is reborn, jolted back to the stage by gasoline and guitar strings and the kiss of someone else’s girlfriend, the planets burn. There’s no word for a moment like this, for being in such a hurry to love each other that time dries on our tongues.

I’ve always been sentimental about my family name. It amazes me, scraps of paper, my grandmother’s handwriting; the way she swirled the S. I’d like to think it means something more than what I cannot tell. I’d like to keep my name, “What’s in a name” you’ll ask and I’ll say: “Almost everything.”