Walking into the room, welcomed
by the smell of stale piss,
a urinal at your bedside,
filled to the brim.
You roll to me with the distorted spine
that I hate.
I hate.
Spiral staircase of useless ribs.
They don’t move, they can’t bend,
as good as broken.
Your face
swallowed by discoloration,
canvas of purple.
Lacking daylight, and serotonin.
Icicles for extremities.
I don’t know if you can feel my touch.
on the Antarctica of your feet.
Swollen, dead weights for legs. Heavy
as grief.
A pile of muscle
fibers disintegrating.
The only movements you make
convulsions, spasms
with their own style and mind.
Rag doll, human
puppet. Any little girl’s dream.
More like a nightmare for me.
I’m afraid I’ll twist you the wrong way,
lifting you out of bed,
bruise your flimsy hips.
As if I’m strong enough, no this is unfit.
I never knew a man could be so
delicate. Too delicate.
A deficit.
Twenty-two years of your body dying
in front of me, in super speed.
But your eyes, your eyes still glisten
like they did when I was a kid.
Blueberry-blue, they smiled with hope.
Two little life preservers I hold as we go.
Ringing the dark hollow of your pupils,
a glazed-over film,
pacific blue daydream that haunts me still.
Oceans of blue and shimmering sparkles
remind me of your walking days.
When my father meets my eyes
I have to look away.
Madeline Ehler (22 years old) is finishing her Bachelor of Arts in English at STFX University with further plans to become a teacher. She lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, studying creative writing extensively at her University and continues to pursue her ability in the field.
She traveled abroad this past summer to take an intensive writing program in Europe to expand her perspective in the field, in which her poem “Northern Lights” was published in the University of Edinburgh’s literary magazine (2023).
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