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November 30, 2016

Slow Dancing with Death. {Poem}

Author's own: not for re-use

When someone close to you is dying

it’s as if you’re both
hanging from a wire,
atop the steepest skyscraper,
in the middle of a
technicolor city.

Slowly free falling 
into the last goodbye.
And the time that remains
until the end
is surreal with gorgeous agony.
Every moon shines silver
and every sun bleeds gold.

Because, it’s all temporary—
you, me, us, it, them, that.

Time is precious.
That beating clock of a heart
will someday wake you up to
your last morning—
with them,
your last cup of coffee—
with them,
your last day ever—
with them.

When someone close to you is dying

you touch death yourself
and suddenly that newly fragile
person becomes a desperately
important part of your life.
You can’t stop death.
You can’t fix death.
You can’t change death.
You can only accept it
and everything that comes with it.

The anger, the regret, the fear, 
that goddamned ticking clock of mortality
that turns your insides out.

And with that painful realization
comes the remedy:

Cherish every single last
breath you share together—
every last good morning,
every last embrace,
every last…last.

For we are magic.
This is magic.
You are magic.

That’s the bittersweet reward of
slow dancing with death,
it forces us to finally

Live Now.

 

Relephant: 

7 Unexpected Things My Mom’s Death Taught Me.

Author: Erika Anne Soerensen

Apprentice Editor: Cori Carlo // Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Image: Courtesy of Author

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