By Olivia D’Zavala

When my mother died in 2023, I was six hours away, living a life that had no idea of what she was going through. She wanted to protect me, she wanted to make sure not to disturb me, so she didn’t allow my stepdad or my brother or my aunt or my granny or my niece or fucking anybody tell me she was dying of Stage IV cancer. We talked every day on the phone, about shit that didn’t matter, while she was dying on the other line, the other end of the world, only two states away. She never told me she had signed a DNR and a DNI. She talked instead about lilac flowers and asked me to read her poetry, which I always did. The last time I talked to her, she told me she couldn’t talk, she was dealing with something and to call later. I told her I loved her and went to sleep.

the phone rang all night long

but I turned it onto “DND”

(do not disturb) back in 2008

and never turned it off 

so my mother died of sudden organ failure, 

while I was left sleeping, undisturbed,

ignorant, emojis with the triple Zs, 

waking up to 27 missed phone calls

and one singular text from my brother and 

I’m sorry, 

I’m sorry, 

I’m sorry.

*    *    *

Olivia D’Zavala, a college English professor and recipient of the 2026 Poets on the Coast Fellowship, has publications in Lucky Jefferson, BloodClot!Horror Zine, Cape Cod Review, Harrow House Journal, and Amaranth Literary Journal, marking her growing presence in contemporary and international literary spaces. Mexican-American braided with a Scot-Irish helix of DNA, her work digs into the underbelly of memory and violence while exploring border-space identity and inherited mythologies. When she is not reading (breathing in) nor writing (breathing out), she can be found walking her dogs in downtown Denver, searching for the best old-fashioned in the neighborhood and a crack in the sidewalk worthy of words.