Old Phone Numbers

I wanted to talk to you, just like we used to do.
You sitting in your room hiding from the noise and the dogs. Listening to the house that you bought and built be torn apart around you by life moving on.

I wanted to talk to you, just like we used to do.
Me in my room, whispering into the phone, so as to not disturb the various roommates, speaking up when you told me too. Trying not be scared that this was it, that this was all there is, that life somehow, somewhere was around the corner in this big far away city.

I wanted to talk to you, and I called your number. The number you were at for my whole life. The number I cannot erase from my memory, no matter how many times I try. No food, no drug, no wine, no smoke can block out your number in my head. It is and always will be your number. The number that is you, that means that I can reach you any time day and night.

And I got you. I heard your "ahHello" and you knew it was me.
And I didn't speak, because how could I have a phone line to heaven?

You told me that it is beautiful there, and that I need to speak up because God can't hear me all the time, and that you sit every day in the window of your house, just like it was before it got changed, with the shade half down, the sun coming in, having your sanka with one pink sugar. And you have so many friends there, you have so many lives that you had forgotten about. You are excited to see me, but if won't be for a while, so stop trying to hurry it up because we have forever together.

and I said "I love you Gramma. I miss you. I love hearing your voice."

And then you were the silent one.
A man on the other end said "I think you have the wrong number".

It's your number. it will always be your number. And like you said when I was five, and mom was being mean to me, and daddy wasn't home all the time, you told me, you told me if I remembered your number and I needed to call I could call anytime I wanted to. ANYTIME. Well, I am calling now, and you are not there, not there at all and I need you and I need you, and mom isn't being mean but she's getting older, and daddy's not always there and I am getting older too and I am scared. I'm scared this is all there is, and my life isn't just around the corner, it's here now. And that I didn't do a very good job with it.

And all I need you to do is pick up the phone. Just pick it up from heaven. And we can talk someone. We don't even have to talk much about anything. I can read you the tv guide like I once did. I can tell you what's on. You can tell me stories of when I was little. When you were little. Of anyone, anything. It doesn't matter.

Just pick up the phone. just to hear your voice without the tinniness it has in my head. Just to hear it as it should be, in my ear, for me to close my eyes to and fall asleep.