The room is scarcely lit
For you need your rest.
But I suspect soon
You will rest forever.
And all of us
Crowded in the room,
We can all see it
But we don't say anything.
We only watch as you lie there,
Still.
We are still too.
It isn't a calm stillness though.
It's the sort of stillness
Where you feel like
You're suspended in water
Or time
Waiting for the next wave
To wash over you.
We are still and breathless,
As breathless as you are
And we wait for your chest
To rise again
Before we let ours follow suit
And when it falls,
The line on that monitor
Levels out
For... Seconds?
Hours?
How long have we been watching it?
Perhaps it was forever.
And then it rises again
As we all inhale.
Repeat. Repeat.
Repeat.
I keep clenching my eyes shut
Because I know one of these times
When they reopen
This terrible scene
Will be just a dream.
Or rather a nightmare.
And I know it's a nightmare.
Please tell me
It's only a nightmare.

But two days later
When I open my eyes
To see you lying
In a casket
Like you could be asleep,
The cancer grabs me
By my shoulders
And thrashes me awake
And spits in my face
And laughs
Because my nightmare
Was real.

Speak in absolutes
Lest doubt should sway the mind
Speak soft and low
But with trembling resolve
Lest the world should hear you
Speak to me
Only to me
In a haunting melody
Of how you churn
Like the ocean
For it's freedom
And I'll speak in turn
Soft and low
In absolutes
Lest the moment should escape us

Sing sweetly to sleep
Those scars that still
Slither softly inside
Your skull.
Soon they’ll see
The strength that resides
In your slumbered soul.

Upon my face, a mask
Carved with confidence
And riddled with resolve.
Upon my face, a sneer
That says I can see
Past the cynicism.
Upon my face, the sort of
"I can handle it"
That picks people's noses
Up from their smartphones.
Upon my face, a mask
Smoothed to the demands
Of a society that can't tell
Success from suffering
Or defeat from resignation
Because it's too busy
Swooning over the dream
At the end
And won't wake up long enough
To admire the journey.
A society that I conform to
Because what other voices
Are telling me anything different?
Upon my face, a lie.

I can actually feel
The old, worn thread
Tugging on my heart
From the past,
The one that connected
Me to them
And when I pull on it
To reach
The other side,
It snaps.

Be bold.
Embrace the cold.
Try for a moment
To break the mold
The world has set for you.
There's more out there
For you to explore.
Behind you,
Shut the door.
There will be no looking back.

And for that moment
I could paint music
Into the mountainside
And watch it all
Swirl into the sky
And I could sing in colors
So rich that birds
Were envious
And wonder showered
From the amber oceans above
And we swam
Through the sky below
Like pure white clouds
And the stars
Wove pictures around us
While we laughed endlessly.
It was like vibrant joy
Had come to life
Around us
And it was our purpose
To explore it forever.
In that moment
Our hearts kept time
Together.

Then I woke up.