They come into my house, stinking of w**d, of prostitutes, of sweat. They stare at the indentations in the sheets where my family once slept. They weep. They pray. They curse G-d, beg his forgiveness, then curse him again. The floorboards are rotten from all their tears.
Sometimes I hold their hands. They feel me, but pretend it’s their imagination. Sometimes I whisper in their ears. They hear me, but pretend it’s their own troubled thoughts. (Is this what we are? Are we all such monsters?) Sometimes babies look up at me and point, and their mothers pretend not to see.
I touch them all, every last soul who walks through my house, even the ones full of doubt and hate. I reach for them so that I might leave a fragment of myself behind. So that I might linger in their thoughts like a troub
