[Auto-vignette: I Have Imagined]

I have imagined vicious fables, windows where there were walls, well-wishes, maliciousness, voices whose existence I could not prove, evil spirits, love, unsettling tones set into a string of narrative sentences, true love, rock-bottom, sugar when there was no sugar, and a multitude of potential worst-case scenarios. I have imagined almost everything I can think of. I have imagined imagining. Though I have tired many times, I cannot imagine not imagining. I hate pretending to be full, but I do not mind pretending to be hungry. I have recently become technically borderline obese. My clothes do not do my organs any justice. The pressed collar on my see-through button-up shirt does not prove my heart works properly for its age. I have no reason to believe my heart works properly for its age, nor do I have a reason to believe it does not. As I write this, my heart is exactly 11,396 days old. I am not sure how a heart precisely this age should function. I have stretch marks on my breasts, buttocks, inner thighs, and possibly in other places I cannot easily inspect. I do not have stretch marks on my inner biceps, my abdomen, or my calves. I have stretched one hour into a day and one dollar into several dollars’ worth of pleasure. There are at least several dozen moments I could stretch into a lifetime. Of these several dozen moments, I wish to remember few. Before I sleep, I see my sister’s face. When I wake up, I see my sister’s face. I sleep between a sheet and another sheet, but this does not make me a human sandwich. I have slept on floors, cots, in pools, on trampolines, in cars, in tents, and underground. Sleeping in various places did not cause me to morph from human to non-human. I have eaten candy after midnight. I have seen more than one image I did not wish to see. In one such image, my sister’s eyes are slit open, and her mouth is a wide, looming circle, drooling. In this image, my sister is gone from her body. Unless I examine a tangible or digital photo, I cannot currently see an image of my sister’s in which her face is beautiful with seemingly infinite oblivion. My sister is gone from her body. I have no other sisters in no other bodies. I like my dreams unremembered. I like my toast barely toasted. I like sauces and dressings on the side. When I have trouble falling asleep, I do not like remembering. When I have trouble finding an object of sentimental or physical value, I do not like forgetting. In the mornings, impossibly and inexplicably, I feel the need to shake my sister awake in order to live inside of myself again. The feeling lasts much longer than the realization that I can never fulfill this act. I have been told I have an active imagination. I have never been told I am exactly right in thinking as I think. I have tried to message my sister about chicken and dumplings, curious faces found in the deep sea, shiny foil stickers, mother’s day, her son’s doctor’s appointment, zoom therapies, and my daughter’s birthday all after she had died. Before my sister died, I imagined the world without her. I imagined a world I did not want to live in. I have a multitude of emptiness inside my hands. I have a pain in my side and a thumping in my head. I have a feeling my sister would tell me to make an appointment. I have perfectly sweetened tea. I have seen Death wearing my sister’s face as a mask. I have seen it on aimless walks along the edge of the busiest streets. I have several friends, a few exes, one partner, one daughter, two parents, two brothers, no grandparents and no sister. While holding the most precious life, I have imagined the pain and pleasure of knowing every feeling will soon transform. I have imagined but I cannot understand where feeling goes after it leaves its body.