INDEPENDENT

(CONTENT WARNING: This poem discusses personal experiences with witnessing death. Please read at your own discretion.)

0.9 … Mom

They say your life
flashes before your eyes
when you die.
No one tells you
the same thing happens
when you are the one
to witness death.

My door got kicked in.
My sister was screaming.
My grandmother was crying.
I was sobbing,
but someone had to
keep Mom sitting up
until the ambulance arrived.

I sat at her side,
arm around her,
like it had been
hours before,
when I said good night.

But I could see it,
feel it…
life was leaving her…

I thought of every moment
that she held me as I cried.
I thought, this can’t be happening,
Mommy please don’t die…

Now all my mouth
could utter was
gutteral shouts,
begging my mother
to stay alive.

The sirens in the distance
sounded planets away,
I was too busy trying
to hear her breathing,
listening for a heart
I needed to keep beating.
The paramedics arrived,
and I moved to the side.

The way I cried, MOM!
haunts me everywhere I go.
My mother dying in my arms
is a pain I wish I didn’t have to know.

⚬⧝⚬

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elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

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Cover Photo by Elayna Mae Darcy  |   (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)