Abstract
I will die softly like a breath in winter
Leaving its mark like trailing ashes in the freezing sky.
I am not afraid for I have seen it.
I saw it in the shrill blaring ambulance where I lay in the in between
When the pain exploded bringing stars crashing down inside my brain.
A leaking vessel flowering like spider legs.
When I called to say—Come quickly. I am bleeding.
And the tears poured down like a dam unleashed when they triaged me through
To the place where for twenty long years it was I who tended the critically ill.
Through the CT scans, the MRI's, the CTA's, the MRA's, the angiograms I went
Disconnected from thought and consequence on medications that made me forget.
Overprivileged in the hospital that was my home
They watched me with the finest eye and the greatest attention to my pain.
I begged to be let go and walked the halls I knew like my own children's faces.
My eyes squeezed tight from the glare of a sun I had not seen for days wired into a bed.
I begged to be let go. My brain was ready.
But my legs and body had not caught up, my vascular system dropping, I found myself down.
I lost myself in a reverie, a golden glow, I did. Softly I let myself go.
I died softly wrapped in gold.
I awoke to my mother's gentle arms and my father's darkened eyes on the grey marble floor.
I died softly and I woke softly, lifting from the inevitable a fearless exhilaration.
I am not afraid.
I will die softly.