2022 / poetry / author

KARESE BURROWS

 

DEATH IS SLOWLY
AGEING BACKWARDS
…

I remember that day, watching my Father’s 
brain steadily lose oxygen. Standing in the 
kitchen doorway with my sister while my 
mother called out his name, the sound of 
Chris!, Christopher! being sung like a plea 
to coax him back to life. In the ambulance, 
when they asked him how old he was, he 
slurred, Seventeen. I remember thinking 
then, maybe death comes with a heavy tongue. 
Maybe it is the act of sluggishly forgetting 
who we are, of slowly ageing backwards. 
Either way, I wish that cars were time machines. 
That I could close my eyes, curl my fists into 
tiny rockets and propel myself through time 
to any moment when my Father still existed. 
I do not know how to write a poem explaining 
what it’s like to watch your own Father have 
a stroke. To sometimes stare at a dusky, threadbare 
couch and only see the mirage of a parent who 
slipped away while you weren’t looking. When 
people ask me how I am, I don’t tell them that 
I can still hear his mumbled, I love you from 
behind his oxygen mask. That my room is an 
echo chamber of all the times I’ve cried for my 
dead Father. That some nights I can’t help but 
vividly remember the day I crumpled like paper 
beneath my sheets, bedroom door closed off to 
the world just so I could drown in the ocean of my 
heartbreak in peace. Somedays, when I think of 
him, I think of hospital rooms. Of white walls 
and white chairs. Of old, broken windows and 
rusted, overused beds. My last glimpse of my 
Father was him aged backwards, coffined in a 
light sky blue. Three years later and this poem 
is the first time I’ve written about him since 
then. Sometimes grief is mute. Sometimes it is 
a cobblestone lodged deeply in the throat. 

 
 

…

KARESE BURROWS is a poet and graphic designer from The Bahamas. Her first chapbook, This Is How We Lost Each Other, was published by UK independent publisher Platypus Press in August 2018. Karese’s poetry has previously been featured in both print and online publications, including The Rising Phoenix Review, Harpoon Review, L’Ephemere Review, Penstrike Journal, and Words Dance Publishing. She was also featured as a Writer of The Week by Maudlin House in December 2016.

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