Britney

The signs of my aunt’s steady dissolution: eating with her gums, no longer asking me to dream of lucky numbers for her, spending hours on end in repose.

I watch her and I see the future—if not for myself, then for any number of people I know and will come to know. My greatest fear has always been forgetting. I have seen many people forget. I saw my mother lose herself in a hospital bed. I saw my own pieces float away in the Atlantic and the Hudson.

***

I’m approaching a climax that I cannot fully fathom, and that is enough for me to feel like I am going where I need to. The problem is ending up there more unscathed than I am leaving the past few years.

I am submerged in unsureness and yet, more sure than I have been in months, even years. Something big is coming.

***

It takes me weeks of coming across dead birds before I begin to think that it means something. I look into it: It is parallel to the Death card in tarot, synonymous with the death of a bad occurrence or pattern in one’s life. This is the first time in awhile that the thought of The End—of many things—has left me feeling hopeful. I know what I need to do. ♦