BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

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WEDNESDAY
19 NOVEMBER, 1996
ISAIAH

               An hour before noon on a Thursday, the cemetery is deserted.

The snow that dusted the ground when I woke up has melted but frost still veneers surfaces and the granite columns transcend into precious gemstones. Condensation clings to the air to create silhouettes that hover amongst the graves like ghosts. The layer of matted leaves on the ground has begun to rot and I squeeze a pungent scent out of them with each step.

There's no tightness around my chest as I navigate the path. I've finally accepted that I'm not sad about my mother's death.

I should be, I know that, but amongst the sticky toffee of emotions I've felt in the past two weeks, there's no noticeable chunk of sadness. Partly, I think, because she was never alive in my mind, never human more than a tyrant. And partly because I've been grieving her all my life and what her death truly marks is the end of grief. I don't have to spend every waking moment worrying about her possible death — it's peace that I feel. I have to accept that. Manufacturing sadness now will benefit neither me nor her.

I find her grave with a lightness I could never face her with when she was alive. 'Hi, Muma. How yuh stay?'

Laying my jacket on the damp grass, I sit and brush phantom dust from the headstone. The wisterias have shed leaves onto her. I pluck them into my palm.

'Since I were a kid, I used to think that the moment I were old enough to be on my own, I'd leave and never come back here, not even when you died — especially not when you died.' A single chuckle tangles into my exhale. 'But here I am.'

I cross my legs and fall silent to give her time to respond. The dew in the air starts to saturate the knit of my jumper.

Rolling the leaves in my fist, I watch the frail branches of the wisteria quiver in the breeze. 'I had another fight with Dorian, which I hate — we ain't never argue as kids — but he said sum that I can't stop thinking bout. He said I'm always picking at my wounds, that they don't heal cause I ain't really want em to.' I give an exaggerated scoff. 'Completely ridiculous, that's what I thought. Pure foolishness.'

I open my hand to find the clump that remains of the wisteria leaves, the remnants of their chlorophyll seeping into the lines of my palm.

I've always been bleeding. From the moment doctors declared the need for an emergency caesarian section, pain has been the only constant in my life. And when that's all I've ever known, the thought of healing is terrifying. The thought of healing is terrifying when my own hands are bloody. Even when it became increasingly difficult, I insisted suffering had a reason, or that, at least, it would someday mean something, that I could turn it into something good, something with purpose. And when neither purpose nor meaning revealed itself, I dug my fingers into the wounds to fish them out. The only thing to find is blood.

From the moment I took my first breath, my mother could never hold me. When I cut my knee open on the curb playing football, she didn't help me with a plaster. When I burnt my hand on the stove, she didn't bring me to cold water. When I had my first fibro flare, she didn't help me out of bed.

Since I was diagnosed with fibro and given prescriptions, I spent most nights as high as she was. Who needs a mother when you have a pharmacy?

I toss the shredded leaves to the gravel path behind me. 'You hurt me so much. I don't think even I understand how much.'

I drop my head back and try to steady my breathing enough to speak, though my voice breaks when I do. I don't know why I'm speaking out loud; if the dead can listen, surely they can listen to my mind just as well.

'It ain't my fault. That your parents abandoned you or the way your husband treated you or the fact my dad ain't stick around. None of it is my fault. I didn't deserve to be treated the way you treated me. You punished me for shit I ain't even understand from the day I were born, so of course, I kept doing it myself even when I got away from you... It's what I thought life is.'

I drag a breath into my lungs. It jabs my trachea on the way in and scrapes it on the way out.

'If you hated me so much, you could've given me up for adoption. I thought it were bout punishing me but you wanted to keep me round so you could tear open your wounds and they'd never heal. You taught me that, that addictive cycle of self-punishment. You taught me to revel in my own suffering.

'I ain't doing it no more. I ain't gon keep picking at my scars, Muma. I ain't wanna die alone like you, Muma.' A sharp pain scuttles behind my sternum. 'I can't run away from you. It's useless and I'm tired. I give up... Haunt me if you want but I ain't fighting you no more.'

Pressing my palm to the face of the gravestone, I thumb the Hebrew script I can't read but know to mean "may He be her salvation". Wrath winds my ribs so tight around my lungs they fracture, and only when they shatter do they reveal themselves as shackles. The poison ivy of shame is the only thing keeping my skeleton together but I have to risk collapse if I want to learn how to stand. I sever the umbilical cord myself.

My first breath is shaky and terrified.

My second is a deep gasp that tastes better than air ever has.

'I ain't carrying your shame no more, Muma.' I caress her engraved name. 'I'll figure out how to let it go for the both of us.'