Golden Girl

I imagine that night when she was all consumed by the myriad ways that we keep ourselves sad. We spoke a month before when I was all consumed with kids, divorce, work, and the new life I had.

I think, "Her mom’s dead, too. She stopped texting me back." I think of her each time our golden girl appears. She comes to me in white. In blinding white gold light. We ride on shooting stars through timelines without fear.

I had a boyfriend once and for too long a time. Nonverbally, she still knew of the destruction. She kept me close, protected with love, taught me magic, tried to help me be done.

She takes me back to him and stays with me through it so that we can rewrite a silent history. We leave each darkened space now filled with sparkling love for young me to ingest so it does not repeat.

I don’t know what it means but trust her completely. We work our way through time until we’re where we are. Without a doubt, we seem to know that it was good. The lines we connected, I’m sure they formed a star.

We consumed my sadness, and I knew what she was by the way she glittered there, in the afterlife. The words I gave her mom for the memorial were true and from my heart but now seemed cruel device.

I said, “Her light was bright here on Earth where she shined. I suppose that in death her glow will be dazzling.” Her mother sent me birds. Bluebirds, origami, that once hung in her room, witnessed her suffering.

I said, “She knew to love, to give you what you need. Not what you thought it was, but what your spirit asked. She saw what you refused, what would take years to see. She did not have to try. With her, you were unmasked.”

Her mom called to tell me, the story was jagged, lacking explanations. I saw it right away. She chose peace, finally. Took it into her hands, removed herself from life. I saw it clear as day.

A mother knows her daughter’s a treasure, I know. She feels her purest heart simply in her presence. I know her mother knew her quiet brilliance, never wanted to live outside its resonance.

I know, too, what moms don’t. Things we didn’t tell them. I know what held her down as much as she held up. I have my luster, too. I see from far away. Big pictures in whole time, suspended in gallop.

When I look back at her, now, awake and watchful, she wore her pain like skin, stretched in fragile cover. And it grew up with her. Porous. Arbitrary. Without separation between self and other.

We were kids reading books, published suicide notes. Some famous. Some unknown. We understood death’s place. We kept each other sane. We kept in distant touch. We ignored the sadness that never went away.

As troubled teens, we played in her family’s greenhouse. I said I’d be lotus. She chose marigold. My roots were stuck in mud, I hoped that I’d still bloom. She would protect others, reliable and bold.

I cannot justify her life for my healing, risk misunderstanding, labeled heartless nonsense. But these words are my space to tell the truth I know. We needed to hold hands – alone was too intense.

I imagine that night she did not surrender, give up, or quit. No. She was asked to come above. “We hear you, Marigold, your dream is coming true. You want to help your darlings? Come, and be the love.”