Hospice - You are not alone

"you are not
alone"
my heart cries out
from the
dark
emptiness of the night

"you are not alone"
in this place
where monitors
beep
and tubes drip
and your mother
breathes the shallow rest of
one who resists
the lure of sleep

she stirs
fitfully
in the hard plastic
chair near your
bed

she is there
and "you
are not alone"
she railed against the
sleep that overtook
her in the vulnerability of
exhaustion
she beat against the
slow
ache of her bones and
the burning behind her eyes
she cursed the
drowsy seductress that offered the
false pleasure of
dreams
where you are well
and laughing and
a sweet girl with
floating auburn hair
sits in the passenger seat of
your car waving
as the two of you
drive back to college
for the
last two weeks of
spring term

"you are not alone"
she wants
to send it...
this message.... her heart
screams it,
repeats it,
prays it...
like a buddhist's mantra...
into
your veins
rather than the mysterious
liquid that
drips from a transparent
plastic bag
near the head of your bed
with its
buttons and wires,
handrails and
table that rolls away
taking with it
the dinner you haven't touched
or juice your
throat can no longer swallow

"you are not alone"
you
say with eyes as intense and
penetrating as
the needles they no longer
need to poke into
your hip
now that this tube has become
a new appendage to your
body

you hunger to know
that she has
heard
your imploring

ventilator
stole your voice a
week ago
and you can no longer
lift a pen to write
the message you want her to
know... the
way you know the pattern...
the network...
of veins that line her
hand
veins you once traced
with index finger as
a child and now
trace with your eyes... and try to
memorize for later... 
as her hand clutches the
bedrail near your
shoulder 

"you are not alone"
you try to say to her....
even when I am not here
to remind you with
whatever body part
still functions and
can move
or blink
or emote
you will know
you will know
you will know...

that there is a spirit
in me that rises
above what you
see...
and
watches while you fight sleep
and
forget to eat
and weep tears so hot and angry that
they burn your cheeks
when you think the drugs
have taken me out of the
range of hearing
your heart's
pain

"you are not alone"
we both look up...
neither having spoken
both having heard
the Voice
the Voice that was not hers or yours
the Voice that was not
silent and yet the nurses did not
hear

"you are not alone" and
I AM here with you
I will not leave you
I will not leave you
I will not leave you

"you are not alone"
you never were
neither was she

"you are not alone"
I am here with you
I always have been
I always will be

"you are not alone"
rest in My presence
both of you

be My children
both of you

be free from pain
both of you
both of you
both of you....
are loved