“Counting My Last Breath”

This morning, I sat outside with the
singing sparrows and the warm, golden
Sun, as the early dawn breeze gently
caressed my face while sipping my
cotton candy clouds, spiked tea.

I think about you most in moments like
this. About how much you loved the
simplicity of this life and yet how you
made it so damn complex sometimes.
So fragile you were, yet so tenderly I tried.

I wanted so bad for you to see through
different eyes in times like these.
I wanted to be there to take it all away,
for you. The fears of tomorrow, the tears
of no tomorrow,

the pains within today, and the anxiety of
You’re anxious, rattled, and scattered,
cancer-filled mind, racing about the
tracks on these last laps of your precious,
young life!

Yet, your innocent sense of denial almost
fooled me into believing you’d live
forever and me in my infinite ignorance
had let me run away with it too, but just
for a moment, though

only until the reality of
“Nothing lasts forever,” slapped me
square in the face so hard it nearly
broke my nose and blackened my
eyes. And It certainly made me weep.

It’s a cold and harsh, hatred-filled
world, sometimes I think, yet I bless
Every moment lived and every breath
of it that I had taken with you,
right down to your last, as we
sat vigilantly by your side there for your last days

Your last hours, your last moments.
Waiting for your last breath like it was
our job. And It was. And I will
continue to sit there. In all of life’s short
moments. Counting, waiting, and
watching right down to my very own
last breath, too.