Nursing Home Woes/ My Bed is Safe

onetwothreeonetwothree

This is how Elza stands up every day.

She has to convince her frail, 94 year old body

To do the work it’s supposed to do on its own.

onetwothreeonetwothree

She pleads with it as if it were

A separate entity

That she must beg to do her will

onetwothreeonetwothree

onetwothreeonetwothree

This is how I get out of bed every day.

My 18 year old body is not frail

But I get into fights with it when I tell it to get out of bed.

onetwothreeonetwothree

I say

But it does not want to give in.

Elza has a strong mind

Even though her legs are weak.

Every day she does the

Unthinkable-

Breathing

Moving

Living.

I cannot think about tomorrow

Or the next day

Because my head will fill with dread

Onetwothreeonetwothree

I know I will have to do this every day

For the rest of my life.

It’s exhausting.

Elza is excited by little things like

Going to breakfast every morning.

Onetwothreeonetwothree

She chants.

It seems a miracle when her torso rises and her legs move off the surface of the bed.

Her feet slide inside her slippers on the floor and she is ready for the day to come.

Sometimes,

Onetwothreeonetwothree

Isn’t enough.

Sometimes,

I need to be more convincing.

ONETWOTHREEONETWOTHREE

It’s not that my bed is warm and I am cold

It’s not that my bed is happy and I am sad

It’s that the world is ready for me but

I am not ready for the world.

ONETWOTHREEONETWOTHREE

Sometimes,

It’s too loud inside my head.

Elza loses her balance a lot but

She gets right back up.

Life is a stretch of mountains-

Up and down. Up and down.

Elza knows that the top of the mountain is the place she wants to be,

but she also knows that she must go down to reach the next up.

Her life is a simple cycle of simple events.

She is too gone to be anything but happy about life’s

Simplicities.

For 18 long years it

Has been hard to

Get out of bed and

I know it will continue for

Eternity or

At least it seems so.

Elza’s brain does not know much any more after 94 years of dying

Little by little.

But her bones and muscles fear that

One day

She will say onetwothreeonetwothree for the last time

One day

She will get up for the last time

One day

She will sit down for the last time.