We do not know what is at the top—where anything is coming from.  

Everything is falling. 

My breath would be sucked back into my body and I would fall forever. 

I would grow old. 

My fingernails would grow until I bit them off. 

My hair would grow as I fell. 

I would rip the hair from my scalp and tie knots. 

I would sing a song to pass the time.  I would find a way to fall asleep with nothing below me but air.  I would lose weight. 

I would bite the back of my hand. I would remember the eyes of my father until I forgot them.

Once, I told people that I fell off of a roof.  I landed on my feet and everyone was amazed.  I was lucky, they would exclaim.  I know.  I would be hugged.  It would be a miracle.  It would happen on the fourth of July while we watched fireworks over the beach.  I wanted to know where the light went when it disappeared.  I thought it would fall on us like leaves.  I wanted to touch it, to put it in my pocket, to show everyone I knew.  I could not do this.  I could not do this so I told everyone I fell off a roof and survived.  Everyone wanted to know how it felt when I landed and I would not know what to tell them.  I tell them I don’t remember.  I remember the fall, the feeling of weightlessness.  It was nothing like flying.  I am not a bird.  I am not a balloon.  If a balloon lands in front of my house, I get candy.  My parents would get a bottle of champagne.  They would not drink it.  It will sit underneath the sink until we have company who want to celebrate something. 

I want to hit the bottom.  I want my bones to break.  This is a new way to get even—to make all things horizontal in order to make everything disappear.  I would dream of lying at the bottom of a coffin in the cemetery behind my school.  I could imagine not hearing.  It would be dark but I could see my bones, see what I could become.  Hold still.  I understood the duration of forever.  Hold still.  My cousin is buried in a cemetery near Pennsylvania.  My cousin’s name fits within my name.  His name is part of my name.  We leave a plant on his grave.  When we do this we are standing over a baby.  There is a bench with his name on it and people he has never met sit on it to rest their feet.  I do not talk to him here. 

When we leave the cemetery my father tells me not to put him in the ground. 

Sometimes I would climb the bookcase at the foot of my bed, screaming.  I used to sleep in a bed that was shaped like a boat.  We filled the bookcase with books so I couldn’t fit my feet on the ledges, that I wouldn’t think that I could escape when I was asleep.  In my dreams, there was blood.  In my dreams, shapes fell from the sky.  My father would run away from them as they fell behind him.  I could see everything from my bed.  He would die only to re-emerge like a prophet, like a failed attempt.  He would be crushed. 

Most nights, I could not sleep. 

My father would hold his hand against my head but I could not feel it.  He falls asleep faster than I do.  I envy this.  I am not good at these things. My weight will crush my father and I am sorry.  When he thinks I am asleep he will leave.  I cannot make things fit.  I cannot prevent any of this from happening. 

I need to know what is at the top.  I think there might be trees like in the woods behind our house.  I would return home with a piece of the plant in my finger—you could see through my skin.  If I touched my thumb to it I could feel the heat of the wound.  I would hold my hand underwater until the skin started to soften.


Brian Oliu (http://www.brianoliu.com) is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His work has been featured in Hotel Amerika, New Ohio Review, Sonora Review, DIAGRAM, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere.  His book of Tuscaloosa Missed Connections, 'So you Know It's Me', was released in June by Tiny Hardcore Press.