Mirror Meditations

A poetic study of grief.
In loving memory of my dear friend, Rod.

(Tense music plays)

I have moments when this feels like a script. I’m in my body, I’m outside my body. I am referring to the spirit. It is conscious and then oppressed by what is housed in this flesh. It stands with me, and then it is against me, wanting to take flight. We are sealed at the Achilles heel until death do us part. But when it has a few feet to roam, my body is in a disoriented state. It begins to roam around the home. It keeps itself distracted. It cleans. It washes the dishes. It sweeps the floors. It scrolls into deep waters of the ocean until it finally finds its release in space. The higher I go, the calmer I am. My spirit returns, and we are together once more.

Experiencing anger in grief is dangerous. It aims to hurt others so that they get a taste of the torment. Not so others feel bad for you, but to push them away. Leave me alone. Do not come trying to bandage the scars. That is wicked shit. But I find myself wanting to be wicked at times. When my spirit is in the blackest part of the oceans, it is only the tethered you will meet with. I, the spirit, fear you will be face to face with misery.

Instruments play in my head. I have finally made it to the circle of lose your shit. I have been acclimated to the writer’s circle. I am not the main character. I am the writer of this script. I am bound to write something deadly…

I see him on the blue line, the pink line, the green line. I see him on the building bricks sprayed with cans of all the colors that exist. I see him when I peek through a point-and-shoot. I see him in Black boys and Black men with locs and a rhythmic up-and-down type of walk. I see him in my trance when I practice my mirror meditations. I see him in my dreams. I see Rod.

Do people get annoyed when you reminisce on those who have passed?
To honor, write, and praise those who have transitioned?
I don’t mean to make the room sad, but I see it as a study of one’s print on earth.

Grief is a door into insanity.
Insanity is a controversial title to name oneself.
A writer has the power to change the perspective of the meaning of a word–
insanity is synonymous with perception…
understanding is a gift and a curse, living while cursed is a portal to true peace.

4 p.m. strikes. I zip up and hang my side bag on my right shoulder. I grab my water bottle. The train is coming, the train is coming, hurry, I recite in my head. I run down the stairs. Clinton is busy. One way down and one way up. Here comes the train to O’Hare, blue and with fury. Everyone hurries to get on. I don’t sit. It makes me feel dirty. I stand and look at everyone who comes in and goes out. I blast music in my ears and zone out. I think of you. I shed tears as I ride the blue. I beg that it takes me to you. I beg, and I beg, and I beg. I never arrive.

Dustpan the thoughts that sink in you. How trivial it is for a quick repair after trauma strikes with blunt force. But what is wrong with you? asks the world. Explain! That I was awakened to the falling of the lamp in the middle of the night? That my mother was slapped across the face? That I never forget the bad things because I’m a poet, I’m a poet, I’m a poet! Nothing is wrong. Only the truth. The truth, the truth, the truth. And I live on a set of absolute chaos.

Metaphoric’n so y’all don’t label me as crazy.

Thursday, January 25, 2024. 5:49 pm.
I think I’m having a panic attack.
I can’t wrap my head around this…
What will become of tomorrow?

Now, there’s one less of us.
I cry loud when I need the room to listen
I cry ugly when I need my lover near.

(Fever dream music plays)

I am searching for understanding. Not of Rod’s passing because death is inevitable. Oh! Apologies for the harsh use of such a word. Death, Dead, Deceased. I hate those words. They erase people, coffin them into the underworld… Rod mimicked the light. When he walked into the room, migraines would ease, and goosebumps would be permed. He talked, and we laughed. Look at how quiet things are now. We whisper now.

Of death and the seasons. Why doesn’t anyone ever warn you about that? At first, that was one of the most excruciating things to process. Rod was biking, eating, making zines. Then it was fall, and he was under piles of leaves. This will be a long, long winter.

I hate the cold slush on the ground this winter in Chicago. The cold air that smacks my ribs. It’s cold, it’s cold! It’s freezing. I tell myself: his spirit, not his body. Think about his spirit, not his body. An internal feud of misery and divinity… Of misery and divinity!

Tied by the threads of our past conversations and interactions, only found at the speed of light. Time-traveling spirit takes flight–holding on to the red thread, dry against your fingers as you let it guide you in the black hole to yesterday.

The tree in the backyard watched us while we inhaled on the porch, exhaling chuckles and talking of future travels. Now, the tree watches me cry and wonder and laugh and cry and talk to the mirror in search of answers. It peeks at my naked body from the bathroom window. Open curtains, I like for it to watch me. Witness me unravel into insanity. Find true happiness. Tree be the keeper of my memories.

Grief is the key to other worlds.

The following morning and the dream: something about the clouds descending and the horse and then being chased and the invocation that a group of children recited on the staircase and then the gunshot that hit me in the stomach.

That dream that I had that Monday night, waking up into

Tuesday with a headache that pounded at my temples as my voice cracked and I cried his name. Saying only his name…

Rod.

In the beginning, nothing hurt more than waking up to the truth.

In the dream world, I am safe from everything…

(Happy music plays)

Nature’s creatures will always come and deliver a warning. They will drop messages. They are linked to other realms. That’s why it came to me that day. Maybe it was Rod. Maybe he became the moth for a few hours as he was on his way out of our realm. A goodbye. A message. A warning.

Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Rhode Island. There they taught me how to be a good Christian girl. I learned that only the purest would get into heaven. And since then, I’ve wondered… What will happen to the rest of us?

Make love. Cry. Sing. Write. Meditate. Wake to a new day…

Divine mist, demonic bliss. I write for a living. I am saved!

I relinquished control to the unknown. Now, my moves are unknown, and no one recognizes me anymore. These are called mirror meditations.

The eeriness of it all, yet… I have found my purpose.

If you were narrating this, Rod, I think you would paint flowers over our tears.

I play Spanish songs loud for you and dance for the two of us. Manos para el cielo.

Never alone again. Friend in my thoughts. I speak, and there is a force that responds. It is not mine. It is yours. I look to the sky and see soulfulness blaring from the sun.  Your smile forms in the clouds. Tears stream down my cold cheeks. Will you remember me when I’m 28, 29, 30? It’s me, Rod, Lola.  I’ll say. We’re the same age this year. I’ll blow out a candle for you. I pray to meet again.

(Eerie music plays)

It was a Monday. I was in the tub, warm water steaming up the entire bathroom. I meditated, trying to be still with myself. I could hear thumps coming from outside, to my right. Armani was on his way up to the house through the back stairs. I could hear it from our bathroom.

He swings the screen door open, puts the key in the door, and steps into the house.

I welcome him with a playful cadence.

He pushes the bathroom door open, and his face suddenly looks horrid, distorted.

My gut knew it was death.

“Lola, he’s gone. Rod passed away.”

Armani cried.

I grab the sides of the tub. I’m processing the words that just came out of his mouth.

“What?” I mutter.

This sounds like a very, very cruel joke.

“He passed away. It’s true. I was just at his house. I saw his parents and his sister. He’s gone,”  he says, looking like a little boy who needs to be held.

I rise, the water moving from the force of my body. I’m standing naked, droplets dripping from my breasts.

I’m cold, scared, feeling betrayed by the Universe.

Not my Rod, not my Rod…

For a moment, I prayed that the tub would crack open and I would be swallowed into a tunnel, and I would see him, talk to him, hug him and ask him what happened.

Everything moved so fast.

I can remember it being hard to breathe, the coughing making me throw up. My face turned red, and then came the pounding headache that wouldn’t go away for days.

All I could think was: not my Rod, not my Rod.

(Hiking music plays)

Hiking through the muddy grounds of the earth gave me an appetite for new life. Birds flying high, I feel more alive. Had I been dead back in the City? Kisses, legs spread wide, a waterfall. I can live again. Hawaii softened my heart.

Rocks filtering the troubles I was birthed from, water cleansing me. Earth, remember this moment for me. Remember my fingers brushing through your body as I held on. My legs swing over as I climb and reach the fall. Droplets stream from the center. I gasp, I moan, I explode.

The grief doesn’t go away. It doesn’t hide. It doesn’t self-destruct. It transforms. The more I dance, the more I see its metamorphosis. The first time I experienced its new form was during my hike. I welcomed the peace. I welcomed the feeling. I welcomed the idea of you elsewhere and everywhere, away from me and within me.

There’s a lot of walking involved in this story: contemplation, revision, and relinquishing. Walking into the trail. Walking into the bar. Walking into the arms of a new dream. It’s good here. It feels divine here. Guard me. Guide me. Flashlight be like the sun in the middle of the night. This is the climax of a joyful tale.

Movement will open portals.

(Música vieja plays)

On another sunny day, news came in like unexpected rain. I awoke from a nap in March to my phone vibrating. Armani’s voice was so fragile, so… at the edge of a mountain. Tommy passed away… he was murdered. And then the days went by, and I couldn’t get the wailing of his momma’s voice out of my head, and my toe hurt a lot, but my mind was low bars trying to connect to my spirit. A piece of glass had lodged in my right big toe and was stuck there for a week while I took a work trip to Vegas. There were things that had to get done, and now Tommy was under a pile of leaves after being struck in the heart. Days passed, and I was mid-squat when my phone rang. It was Armani again. Had he become the reaper’s messenger? Terrie passed away in her sleep. Armani’s momma’s wailing continued. My last day in Vegas was scary. My body was hot and cold. My teeth were chattering. There was a tub, and I sat in warm water, trying to grasp how quickly everything was moving. The room steamed from my bath. Another piece of glass popped out of my toe. That night I thought I pissed the bed, but it was my sweat. I had a fever. Am I going to die alone in Vegas, in a fancy hotel room? I called my mom to warn her. How could I have ignored the pain in my body for so long? I told my doctor that I couldn’t complain about a minor injury when people I knew were gone… X-rays and rest followed, and Lena’s wailing.

My sister called me around midday to tell me that la vecina back home in Harlem had died. Her body hit the floor, and she did not get up from the ground. The door was open, and there was anxiety on the 6th floor. Her two youngest were disoriented, and her oldest son was crying. My brother is near and says, “Lola, the vecino was crying. I’ve never seen a grown man cry like that.” In the background, I heard her beloveds yelling to the clouds to call back their mother’s soul… but la vecina was gone.

On a motorcycle through San Cristóbal, I accepted your ascension into time and space. Holding onto the future, I let the tears fall, or maybe the sky’s tears became mine. I couldn’t tell who was crying more. I had become one with all my compasses; I knew exactly where I was headed.

I get the words Mars spoke that night.
Put your seatbelt on… this life is a roller coaster.
Is that why he took us to Coney Island so many times?
The moon shone on us, and he would tell us grown-up stories about the hardships of life.

I remember loved ones who have passed and those I’ve crossed paths with.

Rest in peace.

Mr. Williams.

Nana.

Tommy.

Terrie.

Harrison.

La Vecina.

Rod.