Last Call in Room Four

There is a pulse in waiting, tick, tock, tick, tock, makes it easier to breathe, or harder not to. And breathing to the beat, in, out, in, out, makes it harder to hold a hope, once it gets tangled and frayed, once it isn’t neat. Once it loses that steady, even pace, so you can either grip the chair or let it go, and to sate the mind, which loves a distraction, stare at another. There’s no shortage.

I am thinking about a night long ago, and how if I had known what I know… But I had stayed out too late, or longer, when the phone rang out and the operator called, and there’s nothing like last chances to stir a want for more. And I always wanted more. Go on then, I said, as if she twisted my arm, which she didn’t, not then…

And I am thinking about the day I knew that it would not never be the same again, like he said it wouldn’t, again, and I don’t remember what broke, but knowing didn’t change the fact that I had nowhere to hide. And that I needed him so...

I am thinking about before she and I met, on a winter night, cold and sharp, and how I wrote a letter, that time, to say I’m sorry, and writing it made me shake, to think of my mother and my father reading my words and how it would break them and how I wouldn’t be there to hold them and say “it’s okay, this is what I chose, it’s not your fault, you tried.”

I am watching my hands, one, then the other, and feeling the vinyl beneath, and thinking perhaps it wasn’t his fault that I am like this, that I should have left after one final fight, but final fights were never my thing, until someone else decided they were. No silence feels as heavy as one we will not break again, and the air tonight tastes like dust…

There are shadows, above, and patches of pale, and in one of those gaps, the moon pokes through and sends rays of light, discernible beams, in slanting stripes over the floor, and the streetlamp shines, and lights my way, and I remember this light, on so many days, like the one where I sat in this same seat in need of a sign, and they say pray, but nobody came, and I wondered, if I never walked out, would I even be a memory that they kept, we are born, and we love, and we lose alone; but the moths flew under those dark mounded clouds, and the streetlamp lit the hall in glowing shafts and I always cried, at the end, when he lies in the bed, “eyes, look your last” leaves no room for another sunrise…

I am thinking, and still, the clock ticks on, the sign was flipped, it’s time, go now, leave now, walk out. I know where I’m headed, after the places we’ve been, and I’m sorry, I am, but the pain I am in, it cannot be worth it. I don’t want to do more. So I’ll follow my eyes to the door where the night will be colder than I can bear, all I need do is keep sitting still in this chair that aches, on these legs that cramp, with this hollow chest, still heaving for air, even now, when I was told, that visit was your last, it's ready to close up, though I didn’t ask, and these lungs stretch my ribs with that air laced with bleach, and knowing I won’t, I want that again, one more touch, one more word, one more look, one more tune. One more heartbeat, before he is gone.

But there will always be lasts, and I’ve had so many, and some are good riddance, and some…

I am thinking about when my children were new, and the million lasts which I never knew would be the last time, and what I would give to lift him again, to spoon in his bed, or put my nose against his head and smell something so real as warmth. I am thinking about the sound of his voice, the man in my world where I still see a boy. I am thinking about the pain in her heart, but also, also, that the last - this last - will be the last…

I am brought to a halt, hand on the doorframe.

With one hand, the nurse coaxes me out with gentle words, and with the other repels me with cold rules. Come in, go back, submit, retract, and both feelings are...

This, then, is the last call. The last time I will feel the sting of the ward or the caress of his hand. I haven’t held him enough, though I have felt that frailty a thousand times too many.

This is the last memory of how it is to be needed.

This is the last view, of light on walls and slanting rays of moon finding their way through glowering blinds.

This is the last bitter waiting to bear.

This is the last sound, of monitors, and distant traffic, of someone weeping, and the hum of the lights.

This is the last chance I have to love.

This is the last taste of salt on my lips, and the last ache in my shoulders and the last beating of my heart.

The last breaking of my heart.

Because, at the last, there is nothing like last chances, to stir a want for more.

There is a rhythm in a pulse. Makes it harder to deny we are still alive.