You didn’t mean to, but you made me jump out of my skin.
Life drained from my fingertips on the keyboard, as my eyes glazed over at the sight of your name on the chart.
Fight or flight ignited in my muscles,
and I jumped up from my chair with enough force to slam it into the wall behind me.
“I think my dad is here,” my voice crept from my mind out of my dry mouth.
Whether or not my ‘more qualified’ coworkers planned to accept it, I was going to that damn exam room.
Sure enough, you lay in the hospital bed.
In those moments,
We didn’t think of the outcome before us.
You and I both joked about heart attacks;
mine from being startled by your name at the workplace,
and you because that chest pain was different.
The doctor snuck in while I finished my dragging shift
and broke the news.
Hearing that you had a heart attack shut me down far away from my surroundings
and shoved me into my brain.
In silence,
I walked to the time clock and physically clocked out too.
Voices around me circled my eardrums,
but I could not listen.
My dad kept telling me he was fine and he was himself,
but I couldn’t see past the hospital gown he wore.
He survived it, I thought to myself, but
my heart shattered like glass nevertheless.
In my eyes,
my parents are gold statues, and I protect them no matter the burn.
This time,
I couldn’t guard my dad from the nature of something so devastating.
I fear the future without the two humans that created me.
The cold loneliness won’t drag me into their graves with them.
Not seeing them smile when they see me
or hearing their voices would end me where I stood.
Not being able to hug them and say I love you would drive me to join the two of them in the afterlife.
Death is uneven ground we all trip and break all of our teeth on,
and I’m horrified to keep running down my path.
Elyssa Latham (she/her) is a woman of words, and reader. Elyssa’s works express strong emotions that people go through and get the reader to feel those emotions alongside her. She wants readers to take away that it is okay to allow yourself to feel and that you can craft art out of pain.
Featured image by Zoshua Colah on Unsplash.
