Call Me Back

a poem + audio

Just this afternoon I heard your voice again. I have only one message of yours on this new phone. If only I’d kept all the rest. It’s always that way. Deleting messages seems appropriate until the day comes when there will never be another one. This message I have is only several seconds long. You’re annoyed that I didn’t pick up, or maybe you’re not feeling well, or you’re tired. Call me back. Something I’ll never be able to do again. I hadn’t heard from you in months. I’m still not certain why you stopped talking to me. What are we meant to do with this info? My brain can’t process it. It doesn’t fit with how things should be. You are dead. Suddenly, without any warning. Here I am writing about it. I can’t even make death seem poetic. I’m no Keats. Technology is so crass. Your avatar still pops up when I search for you, as if you’re there, when you are nowhere now. What silly shit we’ve created for ourselves. For months before your death, I’d been sending messages to my mother. I’d tell her I loved her, waiting for her reply. Waiting for the little indicator to show me she’d seen the message I’d typed. But it hasn’t moved in two years. My aunt prayed you’d find her, said she could speak to me. Her voice twice coming to me in dreams: once to comfort me during the darkest months and once on my birthday. We sit so close to the dead, but they can’t reach through the veil easily. My husband will not allow me to go to a séance. He tells me that these practices invite any spirit to attach themselves to our desire. They’ll perch on us like vultures, manifesting physical form in the weight we must now bear. You were in pain most of your adult life. Maybe we’re all destined to carry around our ghosts.