HOME IS A CEMETERY.

Content warning: This story contains themes of grief and self-harm.

My brittle bones tremble as I trudge through the cold chill of the supposed summer which never seems to form. My hands cling to the warmth of my pockets and my heart thumps along as I breathe in shaky gulps of air. It was supposed to be a dry summer. The kind of summer which you feel deep within your soul. That you taste in the strawberries that stain your skin and teeth. The kind of summer where you could meet someone and fall down the rabbit hole of the back seat of their car without a care, and wonder when you hit the dirt road, how did you possibly get here?

But Melbourne, the city known and adored for it’s never ending winter, has you downing large capacities of caffeine- because everyone else is doing it! Buying a third winter coat that you don’t really need, because of course, it’s winter. The kind of winter that leaves you inexplicably isolated, hidden under the mellow of your bedding, or perhaps you find a fire within another. Regardless of whether you have enough sticks, or the right matches, you’ll light the flame anyway- you’ll make it light! Until that timid little flame turns into an inferno, consuming you whole. Because a fire is a fire of course, and you're cold.

But don’t get me wrong, I love this place. I have for so long. But on January 2nd, trekking through a cemetery, standing at the gates, encased in blue, I can’t help but hate this place I call home. And is that possible? Can we hate our hometowns or do we just learn to bear them? Either as memories that we have run from or the place that we have force fed to feel like home?

I run my hands across a passing gravestone, feeling the edges pierce my purple skin, already littered with memories of this place. The scar on my knee from banging it against the desk in my art class. The dents on the right side of my eyebrows before my hairline, where I’ve scratched and scratched at wounds that just wanted to heal. Pierced earlobes, tears in my skin, decorated with silver and jewels. Initials faded across my rib cage, left behind like a suicide note. Tell tale signs as my body grew; marks to prove that I was once smaller than this, and I’ve grown, and I can do it again. Haphazard lines across my thighs from nights and mornings I don’t even remember anymore. The ones on my arms that I hide the most. Today, I just have wounds that I let heal. From too many accidents at work to cat scratches; I’ve gotten better, I never thought I could but I have. I let my body heal now.

My brother died last May and that’s why I’m here. I was told coming here would help me with my grief, help me to move on and forget about him. Meet someone, marry, reproduce, then remember my dead brother and name said child after him (but only for his middle name) and then forget about the dead brother once again. But death isn’t something you just forget. It exists alongside you. You take their soul and hold it close, hand in hand, and continue on living for the both of you.

Noah James Haber. 26.08.08 - 22.09.23. Loving son, brother, grandson, and friend. A collection of tulips that he would have hated. Baby photos, child photos, teenage photos. Toys he used to love which he left behind. His basketball with his initials scratched on. Letters doused in tears, saying the goodbyes that would never be heard. Grief surrounds each and every one of these objects. It can be felt deep from the root like a tree. But what is grief without love?

Love is the basis for its beginning. The two coexist. If it weren’t for my mothers unconditional love for her son, she wouldn’t have visited his grave site everyday. I take a look around at the other graves surrounding me. Photos, flowers, trinkets, cemeteries are the birthstone of love but also death. Love and grief unanimously exist within these grounds, and each group of flowers I pass, I wonder who left them behind. How did they relate to this person? A dead lover, friend from youth, mother, father, grandparent- you are lucky if you never have to step foot in a cemetery.

I was never really close with my brother. Much younger than me we never seemed to connect. When I was graduating high school he was only starting primary. We were like two stones, jaded but forced to come together. But of course, I loved him truly. He was my brother after all. That red string of shared blood interlocking us; the only connection we seemed to share.

I didn’t bring anything with me to leave for him, and I almost regret this. As I make my way back to the cemetery gates I stop as I notice a small rabbit jump out of a bush and into my line of passage. I feel my body tense and my breathing slow, not wanting to frighten the creature, and its brown dull eyes that stare into mine. Of course, as soon as my foot is against the dirt beneath my boots he feverishly runs away. I feel an urgency within myself to follow him, as if he’ll lead me out of this place to a wonderland of uncertainties. But the bush he runs into seems to have nothing but grass and roots and so I turn and keep walking.

The cemetery gates are only so far away now but I can’t help but feel light-headed. The so called summer piercing through my skin, shortening my breath and wearing away at my muscles. I think of my brother and his soft light hair and his never-fading smile. Before his death I hadn’t seen him in seven years. Torn away from me by my parents, only to protect him of course. The perfect saint angel is always told to stay away from the archangel.

I freeze at the gates and look to my feet. A crow lays before me. Dead as my brother and feet that look shattered by those of a human. I feel an ache between my rib cage and a tenderness for this broken thing. I pick up the poor creature with my aching hands and pat the hair of his head. Poor crow. How is it that we seem to love things, only once they're dead? 

Once I reach the grave I place the dead crow above the headstone, like an angel, watching over him. My spine slithers to a hold. A boy. With eyes brown as mine, tears in them too, holds a bouquet of violets that slowly fall to the ground as his hands shake. I look back to the grave. The dead crow seems to have disappeared and so has the baby photos and the basketball. I don’t understand. What does this mean?

“I miss you so much.” Noah says, as he cries over my grave.