The Ketamine Files: Funeral Services

I buried them all—
All the versions of me
That could not survive.
There was no healing them.
I had to let them go,
Or I would not survive.

I needed to honor them,
And who they were before.
Before they were touched.
Before they were shackled.
Before they knew pain.

I said goodbye
To seven versions of myself that day.

Six children

And one teenager.
I wept,
I mourned,
I stroked their hair.
I laid flowers on their caskets.

They went into the earth
Wearing the clothes they died in—
The clothes that felt their last breath.
Many of them favorites,
Or once were.

I had to let them go.
To keep them alive
Would mean I would not survive.
My childhood erased.

There will be no resurrection,
No celebration later on.
Only solemn knowing—
That moving on
Meant honoring the dead.

Every year, on June 28th,
I will remember
The seven versions of me
That did not survive.
I will honor the price they paid,
So the woman in me
Can be free.