litany in which my aunt is forced out of hospice care

COHORT 6

My aunt’s bedroom was always in a type of dream-state,

curtains drawn and bathed in slits of pale yellow shadow.

The walls were painted a dark pink, and I never touched

them. For some reason, she usually kept her room

uninhabited and chose to sleep outside. There was never

any space to sit. She owned too many things.

When we move into my new house, everything is

too intricate and planned out. I’m still waiting for

another boot to drop somewhere.

For a very long time, she was obsessed with Build-a-Bears,

hooked up on the way humans put little cloth hearts into

their stuffed, organless bodies. She loved that they could

be programmed to say “I love you! I love you!” They had

birth certificates. Build-a-Bears came wrapped in plastic

American packaging and dipped in human clothing.

I line stuffed animals across one of my cabinet

shelves and stare at them before falling asleep.

When I move to Michigan in 2017, I tuck a

different set of stuffed animals into my covers.

She gave me a Hannah Montana bear. She was glittery,

white, wore a denim jacket, and owned a necklace. She was

everything I wanted to be. My aunt and I were close; we

both liked books and bears. I sometimes wonder if she

ever cradled her bears to sleep before she had children, if

she ever told her Kenny bear “I love you” back.

I thrash in my sleep and the animals keep ending

up on the floor. On days I oversleep, I step on

their faces on my way out my dorm room, eyes

still half-closed.

You had to press his feet for him to tell you he loved you.

She called him her Kenny bear because she was dating a

guy from the States who she had met in college. His name

was Kenneth and he lived in New York and worked at

TGI Fridays and best of all, brought me gifts whenever he

came to visit. They married, but didn’t have a wedding.

I’ve always moved around too much. I can’t share,

kick anyone I share a mattress with onto the floor.

I’m asked “Are you still alive & kicking?” and the

answer is always yes.

Once, my aunt showed me how well Build-a-Bear dressed

up their bears’ bodies, showing me Kenny bear’s fluffy

stomach and the strip of his white boxers above his pants.

He never wore any shoes, or if he did, he took them off

and I don’t remember where they went. Uncle Kenneth

visited as often as he could.

At school, it’s easy to forget about my family.

Popcorn burns in the microwave. Someone

smokes weed through the vents in one of the

other residence halls and another person sets off

the fire alarm with vape.

Dominique Antoinette was born while Uncle Kenneth was

in the US. The year was 2011 and I was eight years old.

There was no Dominique bear, but the Kenny bear sat on

my aunt’s bed and continued to respond to his feet when

pressed. I thought about my limbs elongating, becoming

adult.

Maybe I want to purge myself of home. In my

Notes app, I outline plans for a week-long detox. I

imagine I’ll be clean enough that I could lose my

sense of smell. I write all my papers the night

before. I drop a math class. I continue to watch

Netflix shows through my classes.

Uncle Kenneth took Dominique and my aunt away in

2014. It turned out that he didn’t live in the city. Instead,

he lived in West Nyack, a suburb of New York. My

mother told me stories about the public libraries in

America, about winter. I tried to picture snow, but failed.

My family is ever-supportive in my endeavors. My

mother orders me a Vitamix blender off Amazon

and I try to slice apples. I nearly slice my pinky

clean off. Apple bits burst and wedge into the

cracks in between my dorm room tile. My mother

tells me which smoothies to blend. I give up.

I kept her St. Patrick’s Day Build-a-Bear and inherited her

hardcover Harry Potter boxed set. We didn’t talk for three

years. I never missed her birthday because she shared it

with the Virgin Mary. It was enough. At night, I picked at

St. Patrick’s Day Bear’s green clover skin.

I read a ton of Richard Siken. I read poems about

boots dropping to floors. I read poems about sex.

I read poems about things that get crossed out.

Siken was born in New York City. New York is

only a few states over and I’ve always wanted to

go, so I plan it out: my first Christmas away from

home.

Then, my aunt’s body started stuffing the wrong things

into the wrong places. My mother was on the phone. Spit

collected in my mouth, waiting for her to react. It’s

late-stage, they said. Clumps of used paper lodged

themselves into my mother’s bag.

My mother tells me that I can’t stay with my aunt

over Christmas break because she’s come down

with pneumonia and the doctor got her sugar

levels wrong and gave her the wrong medication.

My mother asks, what about Chicago? At night, I

kick more animals off my bed. I think about

Richard Siken.

I tried not to think about it. We were in Europe. It was

sunny, a lucky day. I tried not to think about her

Build-a-Bear infested body bent over a toilet. She was

heaving, tearing stuffing out of herself, becoming glassy.

I think: Dear So-and-So, toss everything out and

start over. Throughout the day, my stomach

burns. I wonder when you start to forget

someone’s body ever took up a space. I insist on

New York. Bags are packed, tickets booked. Over

a year later, when I start a flight logbook, I can’t

find my flight itinerary. It’s almost as if I never

went.

They stopped the chemo. It’s metastasized to the bone, they

said. She lost her hair. Uncle Kenneth bought her a wig,

but she refused to wear it. She had started her vanishing

and wouldn’t stop, skin wrinkling until invisible.

In my aunt’s house, she does not heave. Her

two-year-old son, whose birth I missed, hurts her.

He insists on playing, taking the stuffed donut I

bought for my aunt at Universal Studios over

Thanksgiving break and stumbles around their

living room. She winces when he lands on her.

Over the phone, my mother screams at me for not

making my aunt go on a version of my fruit diet.

After I visited her over Christmas break, I didn’t visit for a

very long time. I avoided her, spending my breaks with

friends in Detroit and Boston.

There are no more Build-a-Bears in their house

and I don’t have the heart to ask where they’ve

gone. They feel bad for me and bring me out to

the city. There, we take photographs. I try not to

look at her too much. I don’t know how they find

the time; Uncle Kenneth is working three jobs. I

🖤NY signs are plastered all over the postcards I

buy. A tourist, I make all the right stops in the city

to take pictures.

She had stabilized, and was going to Disneyland with her

kids. She lived on the fringe of being transparent, and it

was bearable that way.

I go back and try to forget it after that. It is 2018

now, and it breezes by and I almost forget. It’s

metastasized to the brain, they say, when the year

after that I’m forced to remember. My friend Lily

and I plan on going to New York City together

for Thanksgiving. Lily gets crossfaded on our way

to the concert. I channel Richard Siken. Dear

So-and-So, 2020 better not be a shitshow.

Everything smells like weed. Lily coughs often.

I visited her on Thanksgiving in my junior year. I don’t

remember if I kissed her on the cheek. I left early.

I am supposed to stay an extra day when I come

visit her. She tries to get me food. She makes

Uncle Kenneth get me food instead. I shower in

her bathroom. I climb into their master bed,

where they no longer sleep because she doesn’t

like to move from the couch. The next morning, I

leave. I have Thanksgiving with people I barely

know, and I don’t come back. I spend the rest of

Thanksgiving in a McDonald’s, waiting for Lily.

In February, I came to New York again. They had me

write a eulogy for her the night I got there.

Months later, I read about Build-a-Bears and

Harry Potter books. Everyone stares. While

reading, I think about Kenny bear. Someone lives

in her old room now. I don’t know who. My

mother sends me a video from a long time ago.

The first thing I hear is her voice. We are playing a

pool game, and I don’t remember any of it. I see

her. My stomach burns and I turn away. In my

head, I paint the lining of my stomach dark pink.

Dear So-and-So, I say, before it all evaporates.

I stuff unaddressed letters into my mouth.