One day when I was a young girl I came home from school.

I walked into an empty kitchen and removed a piercing tool.

It’s hard to explain how one comes to make such a decision,

And who can truly understand without expansive inquisition.

It was not a fleeting thought; nor was it to be my last…

Thinking that if things be planned by God, then my die had long been cast.

My life could only lead to one inevitable end.

No matter what I wished could be, my life I couldn’t defend.

I waited a minute, and then another, thinking on death and life.

I stared off thinking how thin the line is, such as the blade of a knife,

Then I took a breath, closed my eyes, and lied down on my bed.

Seconds feel like hours with the knowledge that you’ll soon be dead.

I held the tool against my heart listening to the sound:

Budump. Budump. Budump. Budump.

Pound, and Pound, and Pound!

As tears washed down my face like a tidal wave of doom,

I looked away from the rising climax, to the ceiling of my room.

I bitterly cursed the light above, which had failed to shine my way,

And had left me in the darkness from my earliest remembered day.

As the tension rose within and pushed the arms to act,

A clang-clang, clang-clang, clang-clang…spurned every muscle within to contract!

The drawstring on the light above, weighted on it’s tip had swung to the glass above it,

And hit………………..and hit………………………and hit!

My breath was gone, and my thoughts replaced,

With how this could logically be the case.

How something could move so eagerly without a hand in sight.

It had never happened once before, and never again after that night.

Why I was not to die that day I may never know the reason;

Though I’ve learned from life that for everything there’s a time and a season;

And for some reason something or someone in this vast universe,

Wanted me to be here now, to write for you this verse.

To tell you that I was once there,…walking that line ‘tween life and death,

And I’m here now to tell you that there’s much more length and breadth.

Life has it’s ups and downs, and neither’s more important.

Each breath and second that is lived is what’s most significant.

In ways one can not fathom in this form of blood and bone.

Simply remember the universe is endless, you’re important, and you’re never truly alone.

K. Aldaya, 1/13/21

Picture: By Greg Rakozy on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/oMpAz-DN-9I