I let go once, I regret it a million times.

She’d always smile.

Always.

Though her head was bald and skin pasty white. She’d smile, with the curves around her mouth widening like ripples, growing larger and larger as you spoke. If she weren’t connected to a thousand wires and if they weren’t green and blue, I would have called her an angel.

I hug my knees so tight that it hurts my chest, but I can’t let go.

I let go once and I regret it a million times.

The breeze in my hair is like fingers on a harp and I watch the still water wriggle in jealousy.

I’m jealous too.

My fingers are red and chapped and every move makes them bleed.

But I can’t let go. Her image oscillates in my brain like a pendant on a chain and she’s so beautiful that she still makes me smile with her bald bald head and skin so pasty because beauty isn’t skin deep. She taught me that.

There’s another breeze. It swings the image out of my brain and I bend my head down to my reflection.

I’m green and blue too.

But I’m not beautiful. I’m not her. The ripples aren’t around my lips, but around my face as if a kid scribbling up a coloring page and I want to let go.

I so badly want to let go, release my hurting arms around my knees and walk away into the reality of day.

I want to make peace with the fact that she’s gone. Not forget, but move on.

I try to tell myself now she’s an angel.

Now she's as beautiful as she can get.

She’s still smiling.

Always. Forever.

And letting go won’t change anything.

But all I think about is that awful awful day.

Her eyes were squeezed shut.

Her frail body doubled over in pain.

An oxygen mask over her grey lips

And a tube still in her port

But she didn’t cry.

It was so silent. I felt like death.

My tears ran.

And then I couldn’t

It was so painful

For the first

I couldn’t

I

Let

go

I left.

I went home.

And then…

She was gone

With the setting of the sun.

So badly gone

That I was left reeling in shock and agony.

As if someone physically took a piece out of my heart and I felt the flesh tear apart and blood run down my gaping chest.

It was agony.

And then there was the guilt.

I couldn’t forgive myself for letting go.

I held on so tight throughout and the last minute I let go.

And now she’s gone

Forever.

When I look at the water,

It’s still

As if its respecting my loss

But I don’t see my reflection

I just see green and blue

deep green and blue

that swirls down down forever

But suddenly there's a face

A faint, faded face

In the center of the water where I can't reach

It’s smiling

It’s bald

It’s her

I look behind me

No one’s there.

I look up

And smile

I know up there she is too.

#loss and all the feelings I have