I stand, but she doesn’t speak. It isn’t because she doesn’t want to, she just can’t.

She's “asleep”,

but I know that isn't it.

I know we came to this hospital because they couldn't “fix” her at the other one.

This is the fifth time her heart has seized, I know this is the last time I’ll see her “alive”, but I can't speak myself.

I'm embarrassed and awkward;

    And I hate myself for it.

I don't tell her I love her, I don't tell her it's okay if she leaves, I don't say goodbye.

    And I hate myself for it.

Mama says she can hear us, but I know she's trying to make it better. Jayden accepts her statement indifferently. I look at him and plead for him to say something first.

To say goodbye, to say anything because I don't want to be the first.

Mama asks if I don't speak because I'm heartbroken. I tell her that's it,

because if I do tell her, I will accept and acknowledge the fact that I hate myself for it.

I want to say something,

     I want her to hear me,

          I want to hear her laugh,

                I want to say something,

                     I want her to hug me and say it will be better tomorrow,

                           I want to say something.

But I can’t. And I hate myself for it.

Because I know her soul has left and this is an empty shell that is only “alive” because of that stupid machine that keeps talking.

That stupid machine that beeps.

     And beeps.

           And beeps.

It will forever be imprinted within me, with the smell of that bleak room, along with that hate and bitterness. That doesn’t even measure to that stupid soulless self-love of me.

That stupid hatred that bubbles like a bathtub overflowing if I even think of her and how brutally big-headed I was.

The problem is that I don’t hate her, I hate me and my elite mindset that is egotistical and so incredibly egocentric.

So vain, so incredibly vain I am.

I’m horrible.

      And I hate myself for it.

Then we leave and I didn’t even say goodbye!