This One

water drips into the crevasses of the mind as ants crawl onto my brain, nibbling little chunks of grey matter. ready to carry it back to the nest. the sadness over her absence keeps me company like an angry child wanting to go out and play on a rainy day. thunder roars somewhere nearby, giving me the illusion of something bigger than myself. She is laying on the bed… Iodine soaked toes… There are thoughts in her head… nobody knows… People standing 'around her Sobbing their goodbyes… Snot dripping from their nose Tears from their eyes Treasure your pain The absence of this one..... The absence of this one hurts.... It hurts in the pit of my stomach It hurts at the bottom of my throat. this one. this one nurtured me; this one looked after me; this one spoke to me like I mattered in a world of occasionally chaotic routine; this one lived life in intervals of her children; all her children; this one watched basil grow and tea leaves dry. while her heart grew only to die The grayness of her hair... so gray it was blue; was frosting on top of a legacy of the era of her youth the era of perms, station wagons, disco, and roller skating. She gave so much of herself; the pain of a diminishing heart caused anger anger that manifested as jabs to those she loved to those with a lack of absence to make the heart grow fonder. her husband, the guardian of all that is quiet, sat in the shadow of blindness.... with a patience that would rival a 1000 year old turtle a turtle the size of a pyramid. As she lay dying on the hospital bed; her heart kept beating only by an impromptu pace maker clinging to her heart like a tick her children and children's children stand around her holding her hand her still healthy brain; trapped in a body gone bad; fires synapses of 82 years lived what thoughts she has nobody knows her iodine soaked feet poke out of the sheet tears and snot of those standing fall to the hospital floor I try not to cry but there is no controlling it i can't stop the pain the loss, the loss of my mom not of blood, but of life we have to let this one go I have to let this one go alone in my thoughts no more talking she's sleeping now no.... she is no more only in our thoughts, our memories the absence of this one hurts.... some pain can never go away.