A Purple Place for Dying Wraiths must have danced, For her eyes were wild, darting, Starring wide-eyed, hysteric, As if every monster conceived, And not yet imagined, Taunted and teased - demonized and polished Their fangs just for her. Something certainly horrified her. Something forced her eyes So ungodly large and filled with terror. No one could reach into this world. I wondered what words and language Must have sounded like For it to be so completely ineffectual. Helpless I watched My heart aching, tearing for her, Wanting desperately to soothe And quiet her demons and fears. The nurses came They went... Quiet now, Less agitated, turned resituated. Off of the nerves of the tumor perhaps. Yet the eyes still move in their demonic REM. Frantic, As if chasing a snitch in the quidditch match Played for Gryffindor's very soul. Fingers waxy now, And yet somehow I know That she knows I am there. Yet I whisper it, a mantra "I'm here. I'm here", and I'm sorry's. And I whisper my anguished wish To somehow do more than I can. I hold her mottled hands and I whisper, "I love you." A nurse comes. She goes... It is dusk, cold, dry. The air conditioning hums, But I still can sense the furnace outside. Eyes half open, lips cracked, The sun's grasp fading from the day, A yellow rose pulling from the sky. Soon, Lilac, lavender... Her chest so moist, rales rattling, Rhonchi gurgling, Fingers pulling at the air, The light nearly gone. It is a purple place for dying, A violet breath of lost light, As I rise to get a swab to moisten her lips. I looked away for only those nine or ten moments. I looked back I reached, I wailed. She was gone. "Just like you!", I laughed aloud. "Always so vain" I smiled through my falling tears. You had to wait 'til I looked away. |
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