Linking up with Crystal Stine today for Five Minute Friday, where we write for five minutes flat. No editing, no backspacing, no need for perfection. Just come as you are kind of writing. The prompt today is:
belong...
You don’t belong there.
That’s what I think when I see you today. All hooked up with those watercolour bruises on your hand; the IV drip the lullaby which sings you to sleep. And you just don’t belong there.
For the hundredth time, I wish it was me in place of you. I wished that during the diagnosis, during chemotherapy, but today I wish it harder. It still doesn’t come true.
You don’t belong there.
Not on that bed, or in that gown, or with that bracelet which bears your name wrapped all tight around your skinny wrist.
You belong in a thousand, thousand other places.
On the beach, your floppy hat perched right on your head, the yellow bucket swinging low in your hands, while you stoop gently to carefully pick up shell, after shell, after shell.
Sitting on the porch swing, your book in your lap, a cup of coffee steaming hot beside you, with the birds chirping loud and you humming along to their tune. I’ll tell you a secret: your voice is even prettier then theirs.
At the table around us, your hands clasped with mine and his and his, like an unbreakable chain, a force to be reckoned with, and we all know you’re the head of that force, because you’re stronger than all of us combined.
You belong whole. You belong healthy. You belong here.
And here you’ll be.
Soon.