13 December 2010

When the Door Closes

When she's in the open, when there's people swirling all around and so many sounds and conversations, then everything is as it always is, and nothing has to be different. There are enough distractions--enough reasons not to cry, or acknowlege the truth, or was it just a rumor she heard? When she's walking the streets, she thinks about how cold it is, about her fingers and toes, her watering eyes. Numb and numb.

But when she comes into a private office, and when the door closes, then her sister is really dead. She's really gone. Her favorite one, the one who liked Law and Order, the one she fought with the most, and respected the most. She thinks about it now, feels it now, and is now allowed to show her tears (in a place where they won't be talked about, and they won't freeze to her face).

Now, she knows that she had been looking for a room to enter, and a door to close--one that didn't contain a toilet. They're hard to come by in this neighborhood, but they're necessary, because everywhere else, the noise never stops, and her sister is somewhere, somewhere.

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