I can hear the stream of beeps,
A wavering line with unsteady gait,
It smells too clean to be,
Such a miserable place.
And it is a miserable place,
Where you can count each of the monitors,
Beeping like some countdown clock,
With unspecified time,
Only the realization that it is short.
Emotions bubble and well and seethe,
Beneath the flushed flesh of my skin,
They threaten to come roaring out,
And I have headaches too,
Sharp, powerful ones that cleave,
My brain into two,
What an ironic sense of humor,
Does fate have,
To wound me so,
And then dissolve into nothing,
As I scream for it to return,
And pray for its good favor.
I can see my whole world,
Nestled amongst those blankets,
Like a precious egg of untold promise.
But with each passing day,
It begins to lose its luster,
The gleam in their eyes is the last,
To leave me behind,
Watching a lifeless husk,
That was once a beautiful,
Butterfly in a cocoon.
How I wish I could have shielded,
Them from the horrors of the world,
Seen their first step,
Their first word, their first life,
I want to hold their hand,
To be by their side,
To be able to let go of their hand,
To watch them walk into the sunset,
Outshining entire stars with their presence.
This is no goodbye,
This is some lucid dream,
Som vivid, life-like, hallucination,
Some trick of the mind or the flesh,
Where I am so afraid to reach out,
And touch the world,
For the fear that it might shatter.
I would give up countless kingdoms,
Traverse entire galaxies,
Level mountains and shoulder the heavens,
For even just one more moment,
A single breath,
Of life,
Sparkling and beautiful life,
A vivid soul animated,
By the raw lightning contained,
Within the fierceness of a storm.
Just another moment,
Just one more moment,
One more moment,
Please,
I don’t want to be alone.
And then, I am not,
I carry them with me wherever I go,
My life is my pilgrimage,
To all the things,
That they may never experience,
I shall walk a holy journey,
Gladly give up the soles of my feet,
So they may feel the sun,
Bask in its glory,
And smile down from the skies.
By Aayush Gandhi
