The Skateboard is My Pillow

"They said she was smiling, when they found her."

I remain silent, unsure how to respond with anything besides anger. 

"Your mother fought her entire life, and handled it better than most. She's finally happy."

I doubt that, I think, struggling to hold my tongue. My mouth remains closed, and eventually they leave.  

No final words. No last memory to hold onto. Just absolutely nothing. I don't remember the last thing I said to her. It was probably, see you next week, or something meaningless. 

The day of the death is always lost in obscurity. Right now I remember how I spent it, but even if I write it down, I won't remember it a week from now. Some demented form of trauma prevention system in our brains. As if by not remembering at all we'll be better off. And maybe we are, I can't really say, because right now I feel like shit. 

A week's gone by, and nothing's changed, but everything's changed. I barely remember anything from the past week. Lost in the grief and trying to put on an act in front of people, it all feels surreal. Now life's returning to normal, and I've gotta go back to school, and act like everything's okay, but it isn't. 

There are so many things I'll never experience again. I'll never smell her after she's been doing laundry all day. I'll never hear her voice, or get a text from her wishing me luck on whatever it is I have that day. She'll never take a video of me skateboarding and be a proud mother instead of one of those mothers who doesn't want you to get hurt. 

I see my skateboard in the garage. Instead of going for a ride like I planned to, practicing a few tricks, and hoping to land head first and die, I decide to just carry it outside. The urge to smash it against the ground, or a window is overwhelming. I place it down in the middle of the driveway instead. 

The skateboard is my pillow, and the pavement my mattress. I lay here alone, nobody knowing it's my birthday, and I don't want anybody to know, because then they'll try to make me happy. I'm enjoying this cosmic aura of misery following my each and every step.

I try not to think of what my mother and I would be doing today if she were here. I remember a few weeks ago she said this birthday was going to be special. Got that part right at least. 

Maybe she'd make a cake, and people would come over, and it'd be a typical birthday, one that I'm not particularly grateful for, but now, I'd be eternally grateful for. Or maybe she'd skip the cake, and we'd go out to eat, and get dessert at one of those crappy restaurants that's fast food masquerading as real food. Applebee's, TGI Friday's, those places. I picture myself eating there, and imagine myself happy. A person I no longer know. 

My dad invited some people over. The close family for this special occasion. A brother of his, my aunt, and that's it. We already ate, and I don't care if me being out here alone bothers them. I can take a day for myself, can't I? That's what I told him. I've gotta be alone, so I'm gonna be outside. I'll come in when I'm ready. 

The rain begins to come down, light at first. Then progressively heavier, until I'm drenched. I let it hit me, overtaking my entire body, the cool water erasing the red hot rage in my bloodstream.

I want to scream, but I hold it in because if everyone screamed whenever a loved one died there'd never be blissful silence and we'd rely on the rain and snow to muffle the screams.

I don't want to scream because I lost her, I want to scream because of all the missed opportunities. The missed chance to apologize for all the terrible ways I disappointed her or treated her. There was one time, I wasn't even nine yet, and I was watching some cartoon. I have no clue which one, which is how I know I'm a worthless piece of shit. She asked me to help bring in groceries, which for some reason was such an inconvenience. I helped, reluctantly. I carried one of those big packages of toilet paper in, and when I got all the way in, I threw it, and it landed on her foot. I don't know if I'd ever seen her that mad. 

I close my eyes, imagining the scene. She chased me around the house, and I don't remember if she hit me, or just scolded me, but I wish she did hit me and that i remembered it, because then I'd feel less bad about it. 

And now there's one thought I can't get out of my head. You're a worthless piece of shit. I tell it to myself like I'm someone else putting myself down. And after the fourth time telling myself, I start to cry. Why is it to cry I have to repeat some mantra? My mom died and I still need something to bring out the tears. But this time it hurts more than usual.

I stay on the skateboard, the dense pillow I deserve, and let them slide down my face, not wiping them away, or trying to hide my face in my arms. I'll sleep outside tonight, right where I am now. Tomorrow I'll go to school like everything's the same, because for everyone besides me the world didn't change overnight. But I'll have slept outside, punishment for hurting the person I loved most in the world. 

I picture her asking me what's wrong right now, and me being unable to tell her like usual, and what would happen if I did tell her, and how now I can't tell her, and that's just another thing that's wrong now. Add it to the list. 

Why is it we only hurt the ones we love the most? I go to my tearjerker playlist on Spotify.  Scrolling through the 15 or so songs I'd usually pick, I realize none of them are going to do the trick of making my mind laser-focused on misery, like Adderall mixed with a depressant. 

I go to my normal playlist, and pick the song Ive been listening to most. The song for working out, and studying, and scrolling through social media as I stare at the ceiling fan in my room. I choose this one as sacrifice to a greater cause. To being etched into memory, I'll never forget it now, whereas before it would've joined the graveyard of lost songs before it. I don't worry about whether I chose the right song, because in a year this will be the right song. The tearjerker song. The one on the precipice overlooking death, with all of life behind me. I stand on the brink, joining both planes with my skateboard.

I hold onto that thought and smile. 

Eventually the rain stops, it turns to the darker point of the night, some time past midnight, and as my eyes begin to falter in watching the stars, looking for any sign of life among space, I realize how dumb it would be to sleep outside. What the fuck am I doing this for, I wonder, curious as to how I even came up with that crappy idea. My wet clothes cling to my body almost causing me to shiver when the wind blows by. I head inside towards my bed, somehow content with how I spent my birthday. I guess the scale changes.

Birthdays were never something I cared about. They were something other people celebrated for you. Something you did to make others happy by having them sing for you and allowing them to show how much they care for you. Now there's been a shift, and their meaning is forever changed. Nothing will be the same.