Experiences

Today, while driving home I thought about the mom, the one whose son hung himself.  I thought about the 12 hours I spent with her, waiting for donors to be found.  Waiting for all of the tests to be run.  Waiting for the procurement teams to come and collect the vital bits and pieces he had left to offer.  I thought about her eyes, red from sobs, all cried out.  I thought about the confused look on her face as she pointed to her son, tethered to a ventilator and multiple IV's. "He's not dead" she said over and over.  His pink cheeks and artificially warmed skin giving the illusion of life.  I thought about the police officers, standing guard, watching closely as his soulless body gave rise to the air being forced in his lungs, tricking his heart into thinking it was suppose to keep beating.  I thought about the four hours I spent in the OR waiting room, watching her vacillate between the anger of a mother bear, and the hurt of an abandoned child.  I thought about the moment, the moment she said she wanted to stay, she wanted to see him one last time.  I tried to warn her.  Warn her that a body warmed by heated blankets and pumped full of chemicals doesn't look dead.  I told her of the ashen skin, the cold skin, the way loving features sink into the harsh contours of a skeleton.  I advised her not to go, not to enter the room and look behind the curtain.  But one can not stop a parent from seeing their child.  Her sobbing scream echos in my head as I see her throw her heaving body across that of her son.  "You killed him" she cried, "you killed him".  I reached out a hand of comfort, the officer standing near stared at the floor, twisting his black shoe back and forth, counting the seconds.  "It's time to go", I said, blinking hard, regretting the late hour and the four hour drive home.  "It's time to go home".  An animal-like moan resonated from the mass of mother and son.  "I know you don't want to leave, but it's time to go".  She clenched harder, gritting her teach, "you can't take him away, you killed him, you killed him!".  The officer stepped in, hiding behind the innate force of his job he placed his hand on her shoulder.  She twisted underneath his touch.  "Don't make this any harder than it already is," he said.  Looking at me he motioned for help.  "Come, it's been a long night, " I said, gently reaching for her hand  "YOU KILLED HIM" she screamed looking in my eyes.  She needs to believe this, I told myself, she needs to believe that you killed him.  I didn't kill him, but I almost wished I had, wished her pain could forever be focused on me, on someone other than the one who actually made the choice to die, someone other than her son.  I thought about the officer and I, physically prying her off of her dead son's body.  Feeling the invasive necessity of our actions.  My heart hurt for her, hurt for the nightmare she would never wake from.  I thought of how she'd aged over the few hours I'd spent with her.  An old woman, about to bury her child.  I cringe now as I cringed then.  Too much pain.  Too much loss.  And grief that one can never comprehend.

That was the day you called to ask me if you should keep the TV, the one you didn't pay for.  I was overwhelmed by death that day, and you wanted me to tell you it was ok to steal.  Ok to forgo honesty.  

It wasn't ok.  Nothing was ok about that day.  But you didn't ask, and you kept the TV, and every time I looked at it I thought of her, and the ashen child wrapped in white sheets.

South Carolina

it was a dream
but the screams were real
quick
frantic yelps
my mind caught between
fragments of reality

he scooped me up
rocked
held me tight
till the screams
subsided to pathetic whimpers

he didn't say a word
but I felt it
wrapped around my body
curled in his arms
one brief moment

repose from the horror
of being awake

there is a part of me that is covered in blood
choking on spit and bile
a gurgling scream
rising from the shuddering sobs
locked within the recess
of isolation
It is there that I claw at my face
just to feel
stinging agony
Something to break the melancholy
silence of endless waiting

There's a gridlock inside of me creating a paralysis

My Heart Always Remembers the Date

Cruelty: the subconscious holding you hostage and torturing you with twisted memories while you're paralyzed by slumber.

Echo

Hollow
like a burned out tree
that tasted death
one painful flame at a time

A buzzing silence fills my head. Time has become a foreign commodity that ceased to exist in useful form the moment our lips parted.

Yes, the ghost inside of me still cries for you, still shudders, racked with pain. My living corpse continues to pretend that life is normal and as it should be, when I know the truth.

If I had one wish I would take it back
all of it
save myself from the intense and never ending pain of loss

an alternate reality

I am an amalgam of things. I am strong, determined, a fighter. I am weak, sad, hopeless, and depressed. I feel trapped most of the time in a life that I am living, but mourning for the life I desperately want. While I am talented in numerous ways, it all seems completely shallow when I realize that I am not loved. I ache with the fury of Hell for the love I had three years ago. The security of spirit and vigor for life. I feel flawed, that no one could or ever will love me. I am intelligent, yet conniving. I constantly make plans to avoid tragedy, yet live in the wake of constant devastation. My adult wish is that of my childhood: to be uncreated by the God I often feels enjoys seeing my anguish. I see the good on people, I see the good in myself, yet am blanketed by insecurity. I realize much of this stems from youth, childlike thinking in an adult body. I am confused, exhausted and running like a rat on a wheel. I cognitively recognize my amazingness, but emotionally feel crippled and weak. My powerful body and mind harbors a frail and delicate child who is scared to the core of my soul. My core is a raging swirl of determination and defeat. I am filled with confusion that someone so talented, intelligent, and giving, could ever feel so alone, worthless, and pathetic. I wanted to die from the age of 5 till 21, then I struggled with the the love hate relationship of life until I was 30. Then life blossomed and my blindness was cured, laughter and joy entered my heart in a way I couldn't have imagined. Then darkness fell and decimated my every being. My soul screams in anguish and confusion, questioning the very God who created me. I feel weak for wavering in faith, for questioning my beliefs, for no longer seeing the value in a plan supposedly designed by the master creator. I recognize my selfishness and paralyzing insecurity that holds me hostage to a mind of dagger thoughts. I hate myself for being so paper thin and uncommitted to my faith, my beliefs, my God. Yet I keep going, drudging on in the scant hope that something great is out there. My heart continually pulls me down, tells me I'm a fool for holding on to this whisper of belief. My heart is racked with damnation for the life I don't have, the life I fear I may never have, the live I see others walk around with on a daily basis. My mind tries to console me, yet turns its back and tightens the grip of never ending memories colliding with dead dogma and conviction. I am a pile of nothingness, a corporeal shell playing mime. If others new the reality within me, they would agree that my damnation is grounded. Yet they don't, they focus on only what they can see, and to them it's amazing, beautiful, intelligent, adventuresome, and determined. I wish I matched what others think I am, I wish I saw and believed everything they believe. I yearn for comfort and the oxygen of life, because inside I'm drowning and can't swim. My pathetic, self-pittied filled reality. I feel like a fake, yet know I'm capable of being what everyone things I am. I simply lack the desire.