She Said She’d Haunt Me

She used to say she’d haunt me. This was before she died. I didn’t know how much death might hurt. That I’d feel my skin being ripped from my bones. It is instant and slicing and death never goes away. But I see her flip-flops, the purple Gumby ones I’d saved, one of the very few things I have left of her, and I think how proud she’d be of me now.