Diana Darby ** "I V" ** Intravenous

Wade Hampton

In my mind
I think I’ll feel better when I get there.
I’ll know what I have to deal with.
I’ll be able to see it,
to touch it,
to fold it.
But how can anyone pack up 35 years
in two weeks?
My sister acts like we can take everything
throw it in the back of a van
and drive two thousand miles to California
with my mother hanging out the back of the trunk
like an old blanket.
Me,
I’m not so sure.
I keep telling myself that somehow it will all get done,
that God is with me.
But the truth is
I am scared to death.
I don’t have a clue how I’m going to pack up
four bedrooms,
four bathrooms,
a den,
a living room,
a breakfast room,
a dining room,
a two car garage,
chandeliers,
and a wrought iron fence.
Plus drive 800 miles to get there
and arrive functional at all.
I am so nervous
I want to get in my car and go right now
like some cartoon superhero.
I’ll open the front door and the trumpets will sound
and I’ll run around the house in a mad flurry.
But I am scared that an hour later
I’ll be sitting in the closet crying.
I am scared
that when night comes I will be eaten alive
by the ghosts in my head.
I am scared
that I will throw out what someone else wanted,
or that I won’t throw out enough.
I’m scared
that when my sister and I try to divide up
my mother’s china cabinet
it will come to blows,
and that I’ll lose.
But most of all,
I am scared
that by helping them move,
I am killing them.