(Too good at goodbyes)

I’m recouping in some hospital bed; right at the same time some music is playing on in my mind. “Too good at goodbyes, by Sam Smith”.
My doctor has just finished talking to my parents. My doctor takes glances at me with his gaze lowered. My parents turns around and sets gaze upon me. Our eyes meet, and in that sane moment, I know that there’s something wrong. My mom eyes Wells up with tears, she comes along by my bedside, holds my hand, squeezes it. Says nothing. My dad, rooted beside the doctor, arms folded. Tragically thinking deep. He’s constantly asking the doctor a question. But I figure out its the same question over and over again. The doctor, all the while shakes his head sorrowfully. Saying, “nothing much can be done at this time.”

All the while I’m tryna focus on the music. What if I pass on right now. What if, the phrase, nothing can be done can lead me out of my misery. That moment chooses to play itself before me like an orchestra in an Oprah. 
It’s early in the morning. The sun still gay as virgin who’s just had her first kiss. I’m lying there. Moments before I depart. Will my mom know that I’m soon leaving? Will I ask her to fetch me some water, because it would be shameful to watch her son go just like that? And whence she comes back with water, she’ll find me gone. I know she’ll drop the glass on the floor, but it wouldn’t break, because at these hospitals there are no drinking glasses. The water will splash out, and at the same time she will wail. She’ll hold her head, and clutch her stomach, just like she did whence she undergone labour pains during my birth. And everybody in the hospital will know what has happened. The world will know a mothers’ pain.

So my mom is wailing. Her voice punches through the earlobes of my dad, it tores him a part. As a man, he’s obliged to remain strong and understand that these are the ways of the world. The ways that his father and forefathers before him told him, that there will come a time, that the soil will take what is rightfully it’s. My dad will break the news to his close friends, and then it would spread. But he will keep strong, he’ll cry but won’t shed a tear. Not when someone is watching. But alone he would go somewhere quiet, and mourn me.

My other siblings, are on their way to the hospital. I can see their faces bright, and elated to come see me. They’ve carried my favorite food. They are talking about, how I ain’t gonna eat, how they are going to celebrate the food that I won’t take. They’ll say, “eat, because when you get well, these delicacies will not be around for you,” I lost appetite for food too. They’re coming, but I don’t want them to set foot in the hospital. I don’t want them to find me not here.

I don’t want to see the disarray on their faces. I feel like putting a boundary spell at the entrance, so that they don’t come in. But they have to. They have to walk right in. They’ll find my mom tired and hopeless. They have to come in. They’ll have to kneel beside my bed. Open up the food, and try to wake me up. My dad, my mom, won’t tell them. They’ll try to wake me up, but I won’t be responding,. They’ll ask why am I not waking up. No one will answer, they’ll know why, but still they’ll want to hear it from someone. So they’ll keep at it, shaking me up and all that till tears will start steaming on their faces.

I’m lying there on my bed. Moments before I depart. I’m thinking, will my girlfriend make it here on time. Just to say goodbye. Or to give me some sort of hope, or let the demise wait 5 seconds more just to stare at her and stroke her hair. Will she come late, to find me gone? And whence my body would be taken to the mortician, would she stop him? And ask for few minutes to see my face before it turns overly pale? Will she do it, like in the movies? Like in the soap operas? Hold on to me and bloody cry her heart out till death sets me free and returns me to the world?

And I’m thinking of the things I thought I would do. But was cut short. I’m thinking about leaving a legacy on my own, but I have no time. And nothing much can be done, right? I’m thinking about a family of my own. But nothing much can be done right? I thinking of a good house, expensive cars, a company of my own and a better society. But nothing much can be done, right? See, that’s the shit you keep on feeding yourself. “Nothing much can be done!” Who decides that? You try breaking some walls, and they don’t even break, so you tell yourself, I did all my best, and nothing much I can do. 

Before one crosses over to the other side, he comes to terms of agreement with death. Death takes him through a sneak peak of his life, if he’s satisfied with it, then he’ll go with death. If I ain’t, then he has no business dying. It’s all in the mindset honey, it’s all in the will, the desire to live to see another day and more days. It’s all in being stubborn and never relenting to giving up.

As the music fades, I chuckle, my mom stares at me amused. I wanna tell her, “mom, I’m not dying. The doctor is lying.”  But the doc, knows better. 

*****

As written by Phill Ibsen

( Master Of Descriptions )

A Heart_Art_Poetics productions