Three Days Before I Wed

The thoughts of a nervous bride

I feel a weight

Baring down, giant fists pressed

Against my chest, my lungs. My heart

throbs beneath it, quick and panicked

Thrusting itself against its cage again and again, it screams.

I sit, still and silent

And hear it

I listen to its piercing voice

It does not say “I love,

I love, I love.”  Instead, it screams

I hope, I hope,

I hope.

And I can feel thick blood gushing

Beneath my skin and around my eyes and in

My stomach, drowning

every muscle, every organ, every bit

of me. I hope

that they cannot hear this frantic

voice vying for attention, for an audience because

I alone am privy to its pleas

And I won’t abide them.

It whispers what I cannot say, what

I want to say

But won’t because

I can’t

A few seconds pass

And I think that those moments are among

The last that I will spend as

Me, because in three days my name

Will not be mine, it will be

His, and they’ll call me

His, And I will call myself

Sold.

Like Christ suspended between heaven

And earth on Good Friday,

I hang and I hope

That God does not turn His sight

From me. They will pin me

Beneath a veil and wrap me in white

And I will want to disappear

And I will wait

And listen

For the bells, and I will hope

To be happy.

Author's Note

I wrote this, as the title suggests, three days before my wedding. I will say that I am happy as happy gets, but I believe these are common emotions among soon-to-be brides. I could be wrong though...