Name Your Dead

by Kristie Kelso Rothstein

Name your dead
and own up to your grief
Your past always comes back to haunt you
otherwise.
Dia de los Muertos exists for a reason,
not to forget
and Americans despise
such pagan traditions.
We weep in black clothing for one day
and move on through our lives in a trance,
never accepting, never going backward
simply moving in the blur that is our new life
without
Without what? you ask. Without presence.
Without the ability to feel
without freedom.
The lives lost add up and our apathy grows
even nine eleven has left our minds
and our hearts grow less sensitive
as the suicide bombings continue.
If it's not happening to us, then whom?
When it does happen to us, why do we look away?
Why is death the miserable man in black cape,
the life below or above, but not here. It's not real.
It's not concrete.
Name your dead and bring them home.
Claim your grief and speak freely of it.
Own it, become it.
Freedom is in becoming and having the courage to mourn openly.
Arthur
Lucille
Mark
Andy
John
Evelyn
and Tom....the dead line up, the funerals lines I've crossed
add up in my mind. I was there with Frida, Sylvia, Anne and Virginia in my mind.
I thought of my own the day Ginsberg died and wished I didn't push them so far away.
In three short weeks the Day of the Dead will come
and give the opportunity to welcome back those lost.
be unafraid.
Name the dead and usher them in
Your past always comes back to haunt you
otherwise.

The Author

Kristie Kelso Rothstein is a mixed-media artist and freelance writer currently living on the central coast of California with her husband and two daughters.