In moments of raging to the hospital, the jolts from the road, the squeal of the tires, and the tripping of your feet only multiply your anxiety. Delicacy is suspended amply in the air, hanging daintily on the thread of life and death.
Delicacy is the soft and inconsistent beeping from the cardiac monitor. It controls your thoughts; yet is only a shadow on your radar. It shares the rhythm of the pounding in your head, and the thumping in your chest. You strain to shut everything out, leaving only the shy quiver of breathe slithering out from their lax lips. Their lips tremor under the reign of some foreign enemy, and their eyes flutter from an unseen truth. It is the suffering you wish to unburden them from, the pain you would inflict upon yourself in return for both their lives intact.
Delicacy is a light fragrance, a mixture of disinfectant and sweat. Is it the scent of creating a life, or the imminent end of it? Beads of perspiration stream down your face and sting your eyes.
The sweet caress of silk treads faintly underneath your fingertips. You rub the back of her hand, clammy and fragile. Rubbing the skin, you forget who the comfort is more for while footsteps pierce the stillness in the air. A figure dawned in white appears before you. Their form blurs in and out of focus, their voice a toneless muddle seeping through your cloud of stupor.
Delicacy is a whisper flashing goosebumps across your skin, "We can only save one of them." It is the realization that too much pressure, and two months premature, is a cocktail dyed with poison. She looks to you with eyes of understanding and acceptance.
Delicacy is the collapsing of all you know. It is the berating of incoherent words tumbling from your lips for the pure sake of escaping. You're swiftly taken from the room, kicking and screaming to the hallway.
The unsettling tick of the clock mocks your every fiber. You **** the void of silence with the tapping of your foot, taming yourself from barging your way into the room. With the screaming from the bed, the instinct of protection, the stiffening of your back, the nurse quickly ushers you back in.
The soft and consistent rising of the baby's chest is surrounded with the light fragrance of life. The plush fibers of the yellow blanket tug on the skin of your fingertips. The fascination apparent in your eyes, look to her while wondering how this little body will have the biggest impact on your life. Delicacy is the soft whisper flashing goosebumps across your skin, "We made it."