I want to let them go.

I never buried them

My grandpa

My grandma

My uncle

Their coffins are still open

Their coffins are still there

My grandpa in his living room

Next to a tall chiming clock

His hands folded as if he was taking a nap

As if he wouldn't go

My cousin came to say 'Hello' 

He was a small boy

He touched his hand

And burst into tears

He didn't want him to leave

He didn't want him to go. 

My grandma is still there

In a village morgue

Looking like a bird

She didn't want to go

Her nose was like a beak

Her cheeks so destroyed

She wasn't who she was

She wasn't who I used to know

How can I let her fly? 

When she wouldn't so

She cherished elegance

Not a bird looking small

I loved to comb her hair

So fragile and so blond

And in the coffin

Was it there? 

I don't recall. 

And so she flew

But I didn't let her go. 

Why? 

When she falls

I must fall

I told myself this nonsense

I told myself so. 

Why? What made you? 

I just didn't want to grow. 

I didn't want to be a tree

Be burnt by shining light

I had a secret, one or two

I had a shame to hide

My speech so crooked 

Like a broken twig

My body so deformed

With scars cut so deep

So deep where blood would flow. 

My shoulders burdened

With my tasks undone

I was a tree that bent

The tree that couldn't shine

And now? What happens now? 

Now I'm ugly but I grow. 

I told myself so. 

My uncle, the uncle when he fell

He lost his sight with me

He didn't see me ugly

He felt my energy

I held him in my arms

I hoped he would survive

But he went

Never returned

And with him my eyes

Why? 

Why are you saying so? 

I saw him on the stretcher

And there the sequence ends. 

I didn't see him dying

And I didn't see him mend.