Coach

And as soon as you taste it, how quickly it is gone. How quickly the rug is pulled from under you and February shovels the dirt back over your limp body. I sleep all day, awake at night and frown at the darkness. She sends a picture of palm trees and the pain sears through my gut; how I remember the feeling of sunshine on my eyelids, the way warm air hums at a different frequency and what life feels like when it runs amok in your chest. I long for it so I can't move, so the screams build up and lodge themselves in my lungs, every day I walk along the flowerbeds looking for signs that we are almost out of the woods, that if I hold on just a little longer I will be able to breathe again, that this is just a bad nightmare and if I wait long enough it will be over. My words fall to the wayside, everything I thought I was doing drowns. One day I took the train out to Coney Island and stood shivering at the end of the pier. The ocean carried on, as it does, forever changing and unchanging, an amusement park stood cold along its shore, quiet but not dead. Just waiting. An old Russian couple walked to the railing, looked at the horizon, and turned right around.

You can bury me all you like, you know. I will wait it out, and eventually you will be gone. I've done this for years now: I always grow back.