The Room Feels Like Summer

It’s the beginning of the end.

I can see it.

How her eyes gaze

into nothingness.

How her body holds

a weary stillness.

Death can be so subtle.

Today is not her day.

Tomorrow too.

And yet…

There’s no going back.

There are no more naps

that feel like true rest.

And so it sits with me,

ridiculous mortal.

To make a decision

too peppered with grief

for it to be sound.

And yet here we are.

Saying goodbye to her early.

Before it’s a matter of need.

I haven’t cried this hard in years.

It’s a horrible feeling to play God.

Even for a moment.

Why then do we wish for it?

The power to end her

leaves me running,

with no shelter from myself.

When the moment comes

to “relieve” her,

I do not feel relieved.

Instead, I’m riddled with

questions of love:

Have I loved thoroughly enough?

Or have I been distracted?

How many times did I pass her

rolling over for a pet

without stopping to scratch her ears?

And yet, can I love my humanness?

There’s something to be said

for a loving death early.

A kind of love that doesn’t

wait for certainty.

Maybe the only way for me to believe

it all cleanly - to believe that an early death wasn’t a weapon of convenience

or of time - is to remember my mother.

How her death - strung out to the very

last breath - stripped her of dignity.

My mother fell into death because

there was nowhere else to go.

I believe in a death more beautiful than falling.

Because I’ve sat next to death and watched how she works.

She warms up the air so the room feels like summer.

And with heat, everything loosens, even my questions.