Her long, brown hair lies flat against her right-turned face;
\nhands, arms, feet, neck, swollen.
\nHer hospital gown, wrinkled and dirty,
\nit had been draped on her for days.<\/p>\n
She’s propped up against the headboard,
\nthe dull hospital-room lighting casts shadows
\nthat make it hard to tell she isn’t breathing.
\nIt’s ok, I don’t really want to see it anyways.<\/p>\n
Staring at her hands, so soft, yet so cold;
\nthe rigamortis hasn’t set in yet.
\nHer nails look like tiny pins in sausages,
\nthe thought gives me a feeling of disgrace.<\/p>\n
Through the darkness of the room,
\nI can barely make out the pale color of her skin.
\nI try, but I can only look at her hands,
\nI am glad for the poor lighting and the hair in her face.<\/p>\n
I recall those hands petting horses’ mane,
\npicking chicken’s eggs for breakfast,
\nand teaching me to sew.
\nThey were always my favorite pair of hands.<\/p>\n
My heart is pounding,
\nI am terrified to me in this room.
\nI just want to brush-back her hair,
\nbut I can barely glance at the strands.<\/p>\n
“You’re gone,”
\nI hear a voice that I imagine is my own.
\nThere is no response.
\nThe silence plunges the heavy feeling into my chest.<\/p>\n
I am now so much older,
\nbut I remember my urge to flee the room.
\nHonestly, the emptiness is all I truly remember,
\nI try to forget the rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Her long, brown hair lies flat against her right-turned face; hands, arms, feet, neck, swollen. Her hospital gown, wrinkled and dirty, it had been draped on her for days. She’s propped up against the headboard, the dull hospital-room lighting casts shadows that make it hard…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9194"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9499,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9194\/revisions\/9499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}