Electronic metrical beeping
Permeates sterile white space.
A discordant, desperate wheezing
From her sombre, dreaming face.
Drenched tissues continue piling,
Warm hands grasping at ice—
An attempt at reconciling
With an impending sacrifice.

A sunny day darkened by curtains,
Livened only by quiet, fond laughs.
My father’s whispered sermons
Imparted on mother’s behalf.
Each beat of the machine a hammer,
Chiseling away at time,
Leaving tiny, minuscule fragments
Of a love too pure to define.

The antiseptic lingers
As I wistfully float towards home.
I remember her graceful fingers
And how they turned to unmoving stone.
In the debt of that night, a phone call—
His cries now sealing fate—
Around me, expanding walls,
February 6th,
An awful date.

…

I cried writing this lol.

-Nina