When Tomorrow
Dawg
There’s a haunting in my head.
The memories are stalking me,
all the things I’ve done and said.
I don’t know how to block it out.
I just want to be left alone.
I never knew I’d be like this.
There’s so much I didn’t know.
I see teapots smashed to smithereens,
pottery shards scattered on the floor —
fragments of memories
I don’t want inside me anymore.
The memories are killing me.
It’s not some sunny day nostalgia.
It tears apart my mind
like a cancerous dementia,
filling every memory,
inhibiting all of my hindsight.
These thoughts all feel so terminal.
Memories a parasite.
I swore that I could handle it.
I said I’d make it all go away.
I smiled when I talked to you
and said it’d be alright.
I felt my heart die out,
my body dropping into numb.
The ghosts are always talking to me
about when tomorrow comes.
I remember every detail with such crystal clarity —
when I was just a little boy
and you’d take those hits for me.
My father fueled by alcohol,
righteous and self-empowered with his gin.
All those times you sat and cried.
Tore you down within.
I remember you lying silently
in our old and dirty living room.
The world had become too much for you,
your mind shutting off too soon.
The nervous breakdown changed you.
I never saw you quite the same again.
I lived afraid that next time
would really be the end.
The cancer moved through his body
and weakened out his heart.
The day that it stopped beating
tore your world apart.
I hear the crackle of your voice
when you asked if I was staying home.
Everything was scaring you.
You just didn’t want to be alone.
A few more years and then you hid
a pain in the bottom of your toe.
You swore everyone to secrecy
because you didn’t want me to know.
Diabetic complications.
Gangrene spread throughout your infected limb.
They decided to amputate your leg.
You knew you’d never walk again.
Then your heart gave out after surgery,
but you didn’t give up the fight.
Two weeks of recovery
and you came home for just two nights.
Four days home and then your kidneys
started to shut down.
Your eyes were pleading with them
when you begged don’t let me die.
Seven months from a foot ache,
I had barely seen my bed.
You were refusing to eat anything,
so I just stayed in that hospital instead.
I argued with you and told you
if you didn’t eat, I’d leave you there alone.
I had no way of knowing
you really couldn’t eat anything if you had tried.
Till the doctors told me
your body was just shutting down inside.
They needed me to decide
if you were going to be a “do not resuscitate.”
I wanted to ask you about it,
see what you wanted me to do.
But you never could answer me.
It wouldn’t be up to you.
You said that you were tired,
and we’d talk about tomorrow
when tomorrow comes.
The doctors said they had medicine
that would ease the pain,
but it would make it harder to even breathe.
They needed me to choose right then —
let you suffer or let you go,
because the thing that would take the pain away
would make your heart beat slow.
I had to decide right then.
Make you live or let you die.
My entire mind just quit.
I saw the tears on your cheek.
The blisters on your skin.
I made the call. I asked them
when the medication could begin.
I walked away. I made the calls.
The family gathered around.
For a full week after that,
you said nothing.
Only a low gurgling sound.
I stood beside your hospital bed that night,
the room hot and air muggy,
pulling the oxygen tube away
and clearing away all the drugs.
With every breath you took, you were more aware.
Finally, I heard you say
you knew that I would be right there.
You reached out a trembling hand
to say a final goodbye.
And finally, I heard you say the words:
“I’m ready for the end.”
You gave a breath,
and then you fell asleep.
And I felt my heart just simply snap.
The ghosts have stopped their talking now.
There’s no more need for me to act.