i am the way a child knows, without being told, that her father is not coming home. (i am the reason why she can feel the fatal moment, like a blow. she is too young to understand what the pain means but not too young to feel it.)

i am the way a husband’s heart stops when his wife breathes her last ragged breath. (i am the reason why their hearts beat in tandem and why his arrests along with hers.)

i am the way you felt when your brother died in a cold hospital bed, too many miles away from you. (i am the way your heart broke when you realized that your bones and marrow and heartbreak did not save him. i am the reason why the pain you felt after they punched tiny holes in your fragile back to try to save him does not begin to compare to this.)

this is the difference between death and me: death does not want anything to do with you. death is concerned only with his own dark business, with stealing your children and mothers and sisters away without so much as a backwards glance. death does not care.

but i care. i am the one who whispers to you (softly) after death collects his last tributes, without emotion. i am gentler because i understand you—i understand your sorrow. sorrow is the color of shadows, or of bruises—it is formless and aching, it clouds your eyes, but i will be there to dry your tears.

i will sing you to sleep because you deserve to rest. i will tell you, she is happy now, even if she is missing you with all her heart. i will say, he was thinking of you, even if when he died he was asleep, wired to too many cold machines to be himself. i will tell you, he lived well, even if he did not, because you will be in no shape to hear

            the truth.

i am a good singer, i have always been since the beginning of time. when you hear my voice you will feel something called peace, quiet and golden. your eyes will close, slowly, and then for one night you will dream of sunlight and of me,

because i
am
   love.