"Arrhythmia" by Shareen K. Murayama

Arrhythmia

Imagine a line between the nipples. Put your hands on the center of the chest right
below that line. No, you don’t have to remove the bra. This is the scene I imagine
will break my Adam. Splayed out on the promenade, I heed to their heel,
covered by other demands, to stop real pain: when life outlives your life-long
partner.

Internally, I forget to count the dark: your last birthday, the two-hand count
before retiring, and the year after? I’ll be all the numbers greater than the sighs
in your ballads. Meanwhile, I’m crumpling a tinge of blue, like showcase lights
in front of Nordstrom’s Rack, worrying about oxygen, a thing I can’t see. I’m
lying to myself on the sidewalk of passerbyers and weddings, thinking jellyfish
have no brains and no hearts. Some of us are spared questioning what’s fueling
through our limbs. Some of us drift and settle for the ocean floor.

When my dad was in the care home, he needed help with his advance health
directives. Would you want CPR or other resuscitation if your heart were to stop
beating? It’s an uncontrollable sound, like crying, that rises and falls with each birthday and holiday card. Each song floods the banks and rivers. Do you want
to donate your eyes?

After my father’s and husband’s deaths, I wintered on writing; I panted through pain. When my waters broke, they husband-stitched my fingertips after pushing out what couldn’t be said: thirty compressions and a few rescue breaths, my body spoons over a reef. How can you see what doesn’t belong to you anymore?

I think my heart may have turned on me with little fists, when my dad said,
Try. At least once.

shareen k. murayama

Shareen K. Murayama is a Japanese-Okinawan American poet and educator who lives in Honolulu, Hawai`i. She spends her afternoons surfing and her evenings with her dog named Squid. You can find her on IG and Twitter @ambusypoeming.

Headshot: Shareen K. Murayama

“ARRHYTHMIA” IS A WINNER OF THE BEST MICROFICTION AWARD FOR 2021!

Photo Credit: Staff