Singing is a funeral. I’ve avoided opening my throat in fear the dead would rise, walk out of me, leave me emptier after their fleeting. I think they don’t want me, the dead. They want to leave and find a soft rock to lay their head on. Instead I force them to sit perched, their black wings all slick and crow-like., while I drag the weight of Mexican unsung mourning. Now I have someone to blame. My brother isn’t coming back from the dead and I won’t fix my scale. The songs will remain unsung, the diaphragm, short so I can slowly suffocate each day and convene with the dead. A lineage of pain wont strike a guitar string, or piano key, or edge me to release the fully toned and well pitched black doves inside me. I will cage, and cage again, and for as long as I need this rage. I will fortify my walls, add more mud, fix each crack, to contain their memory in me, even if the song kills me. I must avoid the funeral at all costs.