Really Good, Actually

by Monica Heisey

was needlessly combative, with a pretentious streak.

Like everyone I’ve ever loved, both of them were capable of being a Bit Much.

‘One Art’ by Elizabeth Bishop.

And worst of all, the knowledge that none of these were real problems, that spending every moment dwelling on them probably made me a very bad or at least preposterously boring person who would never accomplish anything or help anyone, who would die of climate-related flooding or cancer or famine, alone and hated.

Remembered everyone I love will die someday, many of them before me; that I will either know their deaths or hurt them with mine, and no matter what I do, the end is coming for all of us at a time we cannot know; that in the meantime my body will rot around my bones, getting creased and mottled and less efficient each day, and that this moment, right now, is the youngest and healthiest and most beautiful I’ll ever be, and I don’t feel that young or healthy or beautiful – I feel, actually, like I am losing a war with my own posture, and is it worse if my sister dies before me, or if I die before her, and what will I say at my father’s funeral? A