She laid alone on her bed
with only a sheet covering
her leaden limbs
Face half pressed to the pillow,
she struggled to taste oxygen
[breathe in, breathe out]
lost in a vortex of
bewilderment and misery,
trying for a moment to
forget that everything had collapsed
Her skin itched and crawled with the horror of it
and every thought, every memory
of what happened
[the cataclysmic loss]
was like a bullet to the heart,
sharp and bitter
She turned her face to the ceiling,
walking the cracked pathways
of her mind,
surveying the damage with
wordless grief
There was nothing to protect her
from the rasp of desert winds
across her wrecked mental landscape
Bits and pieces of
the old life [ashes]
fluttered through her universe,
pieces of a puzzle that would
never be whole again
There were too many fragments;
they forced themselves
between her jaws
and down her throat,
smothering her
She gazed at the shadows on the
wall and wondered
what would happen if she did not bother
with getting up
and just left herself to crumble away
After all, life had been turned
on its head with vicious finality
and she no longer
recognized anyone or anything
Some people kept telling her that
something new
would emerge from the destruction,
something bright
But she wondered
if she would be human at all
or just a shell and an empty mind
Gripping the sheet with clenched fingers,
she listened as soft footsteps
neared her room
and the doorknob twisted with a click
and suddenly her mother’s warm weight
was against her
curling around from behind
holding her with arms that had
held her all her life
Her gut quivered and shook
She wanted to tell her mother
how she felt, how it had
shredded her spirit,
but the right words did not exist
Nothing she said ever did justice to
the pain inside
which bled outwards like an inarticulate wound
So she stayed quiet
Her mother was an anchor
a strong, solid presence that soothed her throbbing ache
She rolled over and
rested her head in the soft curve
where her mother’s neck met shoulder
And saying nothing, they laid there
hip to hip
shoulders pressed together
not moving, just breathing
Connected, as the storm of
pain churned on and they existed
in the eye of it all,
together