{"id":2039,"date":"2026-05-07T12:05:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/?p=2039"},"modified":"2026-05-07T12:39:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:39:05","slug":"the-psychic-ruins-my-belief-in-the-afterlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/the-psychic-ruins-my-belief-in-the-afterlife\/","title":{"rendered":"The Psychic Ruins My Belief in the Afterlife"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The candle sweats between us.<\/span>
The psychic names the dead I once loved<\/span>
as if reading anonymous obituaries.<\/span><\/div>\n

My high school friend Joe who often won<\/span>
the 400 in the track meet<\/span>
after a night of partying \u2014<\/span>
flung like a rag from the Volkswagen Bug<\/span>
outside Cle Elum now paces<\/span>
the seam between worlds,<\/span>
denting every locked door,<\/span>
thinking if he can only get in<\/span>
he\u2019ll be back with the living.<\/span><\/div>\n

Outside her window a willow<\/span>
leans without complaint,<\/span>
lichen freckling the stones below it.<\/span>
I wish I had her confidence.<\/span><\/div>\n

My friend\u2019s brother-in-law Jimmy<\/span>
collapsed face down<\/span>
on the blue racquetball court,<\/span>
heart jammed shut mid-game.<\/span>
He waits in the hallway of his own house<\/span>
among the weight of shadows,<\/span>
the cold slipstream when his wife passes,<\/span>
the smell of his son\u2019s sleep through a cracked door.<\/span>
He keeps asking the same question\u2014<\/span>
How can they go on?<\/span><\/div>\n

My sister Michelle memorized the curves<\/span>
and cuts of her neighborhood streets<\/span>
and a mile from home fell asleep<\/span>
at the wheel. Her Honda Civic<\/span>
dug into a terraced lawn,<\/span>
her neck breaking like a chicken bone.<\/span>
All these years later she still<\/span>
refuses another body.<\/span>
Says once was enough<\/span>
with the drape of human feeling<\/span>
too hard to bear.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
I think of grass,<\/span>
how it bends with wind<\/span>
and doesn\u2019t argue,<\/span>
how rocks accept their stains.<\/span><\/div>\n

The psychic tells me about her own brother<\/span>
Michael, taken by cancer, and how<\/span>
he still craves the drag of a good smoke.<\/span>
He drifts beside strangers on a break<\/span>
outside an oil-stained factory,<\/span>
opens his mouth, hoping for<\/span>
the soft violence on his tongue again.<\/span><\/div>\n

Unfair, the psychic says.<\/span>
No bright ascension.<\/span>
Lives still stuck,<\/span>
shackled by the envy<\/span>
of those who depart cleanly.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The candle sweats between us.The psychic names the dead I once lovedas if reading anonymous obituaries. My high school friend Joe who often wonthe 400<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2041,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions\/2041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sagebrushreview.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}