Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Off the Cuff 11: The Last Thing & The Nurse's Last Stand

APAD 11    prompt: "The Last ___________" (fill in the blank)

The Last Thing

The last thing I want to do
is kill you off
but you have
crossed the boundaries I set
two years ago
once too often.

How dare you stand there, unmoving
beautiful, so alive!
while I fume, wanting
to cut you down, dreading the moment.

I have googled you:
read the rave reviews
the rapturous praise.
Too bad, I know the other side -
that relentless will to dominate
destroy, strangle
all possibility of competition.

Have I loved you?
Oh yes. Do I know you?
Yes! And the last thing I want to do
is kill you, but
as I said: once too often you have
broken my rules.
This murder must
happen soon, or
I'll be forever powerless against
your heartlessness,
your cruel fingers
couch grass.


The Nurse's Last Stand

We sat in a yellow and blue room
with a view. She completed
black page after black page
for her only son, soon to turn
twenty-one. Two albums as her
legacy, knowing there was
nothing to be done.

She took the treatments, both
mainstream and alternative,
calmly. Over the black pages
bright with primary colours
and family adventures, she said:
When the pain ... I will take
myself away.

And she did. Lying in
in a tropical apartment with
white sheets and white walls
the blue sea and yellow sands
she let the pain take her
through morphine heaven
to freedom.

NaPoWriMo

1 comment: