Pacing, waiting, wasting time
My mother sings her battle chant through the monitor’s blinks and beeps
Anxiety chokes me between each heart beat
The drunk driver's headlights still beaming in my brain
She needs blood

Shhh, shh she shivers
Awaiting her share for the rationed ruby’s warmth
Her skin worn from years of a mother’s service
Lies loosely on her pale, weak face
A crime to humanity
Erasing the color out of this masterpiece
Yeah mom, you’re glowing

I try and quell the noisome cries in that silent hospital room
As she rests with her soft beauty
Her tissues exposed
Wailing into the air,
Like a banshee’s envious shriek
The warm hands I held,
The warm hands that hugged
The warm hands that wiped away my tears and told me it’s okay
Forgotten
In the freezing chill that blankets my mother
Her body fatigued
Her rips and tears of flesh
Squeezed of all available life
She bleeds a clear liquid
Clear
With no color-filled story of the future
If only you could accept my crimson gift
I can only pray for a saint in disguise
To donate their life

I try to hold on, but the white ghost flits away
A last breath.
I kiss her forehead, wipe away her tears to tell her it’s okay.
She needs blood