I walked into the room that contained your urn.
I approached the object that confined your death.
Made it terminal, posing with its leverage.
That your urn rose above me disturbed me.
I couldn’t reach it, I was too small, I felt stuck in the wrong position.
The urn that withheld all of our dreams and infected me with nightmares.
I would stand there, tiptoeing around it.
Silently panting, my thoughts as loud as destruction.
The room was engulfed in a grey finished light, matte.
I felt you there, beside me, maybe.
Imagining your own prevailing bones.
Perhaps, I was a bit fascinated by what had befallen someone close to me.
But at the same time I excluded myself, ran away, turned my back on everything.
I existed without death, the taste and memory of it,
But I noticed that it follows and finds you everywhere.
It gave me a feeling that I had to deal with.
You in an urn.
You never coming back. You silenced forever.
I stared at this foreign object, its grandeur,
And thought: I will never see it again.
And by extension, you.
You have been made object.
Your scent still lingered in the room, in the bathroom cupboards.
I thought I can never get rid of death.
I reduced everything to a minimum.
And uttered my goodbyes without saying a word, shunned.
Because what happened between you and me, felt so very safe in that mute urn.
“In Contemplation” by Conrad Kiesel (1846-1921)
Croque-Melpomene 