Free The Sea-Wave by Rolli Page A

leaves. Pretty soon he was snoring.
    I stared at the doorway for a long time. When the moon went behind a cloud, the doorway disappeared.
    I’m never going to see anyone ever again.

Again

    W hen I woke up at dawn, I was lying on the floor beside my wheelchair.
    It was an old shack full of leaves.
    The old man was gone. So was his stick.
    A raccoon ran out of the room.
    I squirmed a bit and got my memorandum book out of the side pouch and a pen.
    I wrote until I passed out.
    When I woke up, I was in my chair and the chair was moving. My memorandum book was on my lap. I kept tipping forward and almost falling out and the old man kept stopping and pulling me back.
    I held on tight to my memorandum book.
    I passed out again.

The Sea-Wave XI

    B ut nothing in life surprises. Truly. Not even . . . the extraordinary thing. It is only a page. One page. There will still be another, and another. A thrilling page, an awful. They will all, as stems of grass, bend over. For our poet lies dreaming. With his dreaming book. On the green lawn. It lays . . . on his breastbone, open. The book. And the wind — he is dreaming — takes his words away. They turn to ash seed. And they blow away.

So Much

    T here’s so much to live for.
    I just haven’t figured out what.

The Sea-Wave XII

    I have prayed this living was a dream.
    I have even prayed.

Collapse

    H e was pushing me slowly. It was so windy.
    A leaf fell in my hair.
    The old man fell.
    I thought he was running. I moved so fast. He was falling.
    My chair tipped back and slammed hard on the ground. My head slid back off my headrest over I think his walking-stick. The old man’s face slammed right onto my face. My nose fit right between his nose and his lips. His breath fogged up my glasses and smelled like death. I could only see fog.
    Then I felt his one hand sliding down my arm. He was maybe trying to grab my hand. But then he just stopped moving.
    He made a soft noise.
    Then my glasses unfogged.

Black Hole

    T he old man’s throat is a black hole.
    When I look down, I can see his eyes.
    I try not to look down.
    I moved my head back and forth until his head fell off me and onto the ground beside me. Then I reached for my memorandum book.
    There’s still a few pages left.

The End of the Story

    T his wasn’t what I pictured. When I pictured the end of the story.
    It’s the end of the story.
    I haven’t been okay in a long time. I’ve been hurting for a long, long time. When you’re suffering . . .
    Suffering ends. One way or the other.
    It had to happen.
    It’s happening.

Leaves

    Y ou think of things differently. You do. You can be sad when you’re dying, but you can’t hate yourself. You’re barely there. You can’t hate vapour or a rare mineral. Whoever you were isn’t there.
    I’m turning to leaves. It feels like. I feel so light.
    I’ll turn to leaves.
    Then I’ll blow away.

Mom, Dad

    . . .

Pain

    I ’m in so much pain.
    My stomach hurts bad.
    My heart broke.

Untitled

    I can hear the ocean.
    I don’t know where I am.

Acknowledgements

    Extracts from The Sea-Wave were first published in The Walrus (online), Broken Pencil , Word Riot and Writing Tomorrow . My thanks to the editors. Thanks to Guernica, too.

Copyright © 2016, Charles Anderson (Rolli) and Guernica Editions Inc.
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    David Moratto, interior and cover design
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