"Breathless"

A Poem by PoeT4994

Was writing this for someone else, but after a few lines, I was really feeling to write it about my mom.

“They said to just be ourselves but we all knew that was never good enough.
They said we had every chance but how could we not f**k it all up?
We would spend a life time trying to figure out how to make our hearts stop beating!
We would spend a life time trying to figure out how to make ourselves stop breathing!”
She...she has not took a breath in a long time.
And y’all, I can hear the knots in her throat knocking back the pain with a sucker punch.
She gasps around a Dear Jane letter that she balled up and swallowed.
She’s waiting for the day he gets back.
Until then, she’ll lay, breathless, on the living room floor, trying oh so hard to get to the phone,
so she can call for help.
I’ve watched her face hue like a broken skyline that seems to shine bright like bombs, no matter what.
Because she’s one beautiful train wreck happening.
One neck crank, and a whiplash to be a part of.
Have you ever watched the living dead die again?
I put a middle finger to the Northern Lights and went back home to watch the most tragic version of the Mona Lisa to date, melt like a Dali.
My mother has been trying to catch her breath for a long time.
And she just got hooked right in her throat again.
It’s hard to tell your son you love him when the breath of your lungs can’t find the time to break itself long enough to slip past 37 years of mistakes.
It’s pretty damn hard to be with your parents on their death beds for a few days.
But for years now, my mom’s been carrying her mattress in a suitcase like dying was her business.
And business is f*****g great this time of year.
I heard stocks rose 43% last time her and the guy she loved split up.
And as a share holder of her heart, I felt the impact.
And I felt the rats,
burrowing.
Burrowing through the broken home she calls a heart.
My mom has been trying to catch her breath for a long time.
I have yet to learn CPR.
And it seems like the medics are out helpin’ every one’s lives, but hers.
So I’ve been standing here, with a hammer and a hand full of hope, knocking presence back into her body.
But the only thing I ever see is her chest caving into her lungs.
Maybe that’s why her heart is so dark.
Her breath, is slowly squeezing out as if her lungs were tires with nails in ‘em.
And it can’t get past the foot she left in her throat.
So now I just sit, and watch, as the pressure builds up, waiting till her throat bursts open.
Maybe then I can finally hear what “I love you.” sounds like.
“She would spend a life time trying to figure out how to make her heart stop beating!
She would spend a life time trying to figure out how to make herself stop breathing!”