This poem has taken weeks to write and has been fairly mercilessly edited for the past few days. It will most likely require more editing but, for now, I’m fairly happy with it. It is raw and emotional. I make no apology.
You leave again
The phone rang a second time and with it I lost you
Finally, irrevocably gone you had not left yet
You had left before it would not be the last time
With its first ring the last Act but one began
Did this penultimate Act begin with that first ring?
Or before? When I lost you again
A Mobius strip
The phone rang incessantly
There were only two calls
I cannot hold your hand
Grown woman young girl
The girl you left the woman you leave
A small child bereft longing
Contained in a woman’s body
I sit beside your bed tubes machines monitors
All so familiar but you are not
Your bloated face is not that of the mother I crave
Your sparkling eyes are closed your voice silenced
Tenacious you are still here
I cannot hold your hand
Left swaddled in bandages white as the skin inside your wrist
De-gloved the morbid medical term for your injury
The arterial line in your right wrist tells me you are alive
I cannot hold your hand
The grown small woman child
The girl you left the woman you leave
Days pass a seated vigil a remembrance
I speak to you but your eyes are closed
Face a mask I cannot hold your hand
There is only hope there is none I hope
I sit and hold your foot and know that you would scream
Laugh and kick me away if you could
The phone rings for a second time
Your pupil is fixed dilated
I scream and sob and run and cry and I cannot hold your hand
You are having a CT scan and I cannot hold your hand
Your skull can no longer contain your precious mind
Escaping blood
I cannot hold your hand
You are dying you are dead but for machines
I cannot hold your hand
The grown small woman child
The girl you left the woman you leave
You stood there with your bag packed you left
Did I say goodbye? Did you?
A small child bereft longing
Did I say goodbye? Did you?
I cannot hold your hand and you are dying
I say fuck your arterial line
Bandages white as the skin inside your wrist
I am touching it now
I am holding your hand
epicormicgrowth 