The Moment That Changed Everything
It's the waiting.
When time becomes thick with anticipated difficulty and borrowed suffering.
No matter how attentive and involved I may seem,
Internally I am fixated on the clock.
Each agonizing tick strikes like a hammer on my already throbbing temples.
Waiting for the call.
Hands shaking, I stare at my phone as if that will make it ring.
I feel like a teenager watching a pregnancy test after the condom breaks,
Sure of the result, powerless to change it,
Doomed to wait for those lines to appear.
Time is relentless and cruel,
Simultaneously progressing us toward our eventual demise
While filling the seconds, minutes, hours, days with Instagram photos.
We have no right of refusal, at the mercy of two hands and twelve numbers.
A face that never expresses empathy or support.
Time has no favorites.
Our charms, our wealth, our pleas are all powerless.
The playing field is level, yet I am unexpectedly on the losing team forever.
Nodding my head, pretending I am present,
Until at last the phone ringing ends my agony.
Time can stop when you least expect it.
The slug of my waiting instantly became the moment that changed everything.
Just thirty seconds to exchange pleasantries before pulling the trigger:
"The biopsy shows your daughter has lymphoma."
Time is racing now, forcing me to begin training to cross the finish line first.
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