pain + grief

I don’t know how to treat burns. Today I wandered into the kitchen at 1 p.m., with a glossy look in my eyes. I’m depressed today. I’ve been depressed.

My mother looked at me. “That’s enough,” she said. I’ve been in bed all day, crying, holding my cat, Roman. His abdomen is enlarged from his liver. He has tumors and we’re putting him down on Monday, which is tomorrow. He’s seventeen. We’ve been sharing a bed since I was five.

“Help me make bread,” she said. I sat on the floor next to my other cat, Patches, while my mom rolled out the pita dough into soft circles.

Later, I reached my hand into the hot pan to flip the inflated loaf over. It’s not a loaf. I don’t know what word properly describes it. A balloon, a plate, a moon of bread. My thumb popped the air bubble and burned me. I didn’t know air could be so hot in a pan like that. I flinched backward.

My mom absolved me of my bread making duties and I sat on the couch pressing an ice cube to my thumb and struggling to type messages to my friends on my phone. I don’t want to talk to anyone. When I take the ice away my thumb stings, a memory of heat. It’s swollen up to the nail.

As I type this, I’m in pain. My cat’s dying, my thumb feels like it’s been cut by a razor. I threw the remainder of the ice cube away. I felt useless, holding it to my thumb. I have things to do.

I’ve been in pain a lot the past few days. I woke up yesterday with a monstrous headache biting a chunk out of my head out, throbbing and sharp. I’ve been getting migraines lately. My sister thinks I need to drink caffeine in the morning, but I do. I try to, at least. Trying should be enough, in my opinion. It never is, though.

Every Tuesday night, like clockwork, I get a headache at 6 p.m. It may be placebo. On Tuesdays I go to my internship and stay there from four p.m. to nine p.m. I love it. Wearing a mask for so long makes my head hurt. Or maybe I’m just dehydrated because of the mask. I don’t drink water, I don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable with me pulling my mask down and drinking every five minutes. I hate those headaches. They feel like fingernails digging into my skull. It makes me nauseous. I come home and kneel in front of the toilet for a few minutes, eyes closed, whole head pulsing with pain. It’s almost unbearable.

Today I sat on the floor of my bedroom and breathing hurt. Breathing in was like being stabbed below my heart. I hate when that happens. Why does that happen? I want to shake my fist at God. Haven’t I been through enough already? Can you let up a little?

Sometimes pain can be all-encompassing, seemingly never-ending. My heat squeezes itself, palpitates, opens and gushes blood where it isn’t supposed to be. Grief feels like that. An open wound. Something where it isn’t supposed to be. A displaced organ, enlarged, tumorous, blocking out everything else.

Every death before Roman’s has been abrupt. First, R-‘s suicide in 2019. My grandma in the hospital, seemingly healed and then vanishing. My maternal grandpa suddenly asking, “Is Marie dead? Did she die and you didn’t tell me?” We lied and said no. He died, still. My paternal grandpa collapsing in his living room and dying minutes later.

July 12, 2019. March 29, 2020. October 18, 2020. February 11, 2021. Now, Roman. April 26, 2021. It all feels too much. I’m barely over a death before another one shoots through me and re-shatters my life. I feel like I’m being punched in the chest, my sternum cracked inside me. My heat is speared to me with a shard of broken bone.

These deaths— these series of deaths— feels like an infection flaring up. I am tiptoeing through life asking myself, Who’s next?