I’ve decided, when I die I will not go.
Like a handprint on the wall, gum under the desk, or a burr in the carpet, I’ll not leave.
There was the man on the bus who screamed as I went to work. “Go home, illegal!” “No foreign language!” “Shut up! Shut up! Foreigners, shut up!
I’ve decided I’ll be back. In his home, in his bed, lying by his wife under safe quilts—I’ll find him. I’ll sit on his chest. I’ll stare into his eyes as he wakes. Dread, terror, a thousand regrets. He’ll think of the bus every day and curse himself, too.
There was the store manager, the man who spoke to us like we were babies. Sometimes he screamed at my Tanzanian coworker—a man twice his age. He criticized my shoes, my hair, the nicest blazer and shirt I could afford. He told me to buck up and cut my teeth before asking for a better salary; ‘it’s better than you’d get back home.’
I won’t leave him either. What powers do the dead possess? If I could, I’d give him erectile dysfunction, or make him ejaculate the moment his wife or mistress touches his trousers. Humiliation to make an empty shell of his manhood. I know, I know very well, how humiliation shrinks a person.
And most of all, most of all these things, I’ve decided I’ll be back for you. You who stole decades of me. You for whom I wasted my sweetest feelings, my kindest acts, my deepest forgiveness. You to whom I’ve given everything, played every role. Mother, lover, frightened child, and kicked dog. You for whom I’ve spent nights thinking, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
So on the day I die, I won’t be gone. I’ll come back.
– Kat JOPLIN