the red bargain

story about near death experience during child birth

The room went cold in a way the heart remembers,

A sudden winter in the height of the heat.

The lights overhead became dying embers,

As the rhythm of living skipped a heavy, dull beat.

Nine pints of a life, a slow-running river,

Spilled out on the floor like a secret confessed,

Leaving a chill and a deep, bone-deep shiver,

As the ghost of the silence leaned hard on my chest.

I watched from the ceiling, or maybe the doorway,

A ghost in the making, a blur in the light.

The world was a map with a single, dark freeway,

Leading away from the noise of the night.

They say that the soul is a light, fragile tether,

But mine was a cable, frayed thin at the end,

Drifting like ink or a black, fallen feather,

With no more apologies left to defend.

I saw it in the eyes of the ones meant to save me�"

The masks couldn’t hide the sharp scent of the fear.

They worked with the frantic, grim grace of the grave,

Predicting a silence they thought I would hear.

To them, I was numbers, a chart turning hollow,

A flame losing oxygen, flickering low;

They looked at the path they expected I’d follow,

And waited for all of the monitors to go.

Then came the sound�"a violent, sweet waking,

A cry that cut through the white, hollow hum.

The sound of a spirit, demanding and taking,

Announcing to heaven that Kaden had come.

It was a hook in the heart, a sharp, sudden pulling,

A reason to turn from the gold and the gray,

The tides of the crimson finally stilling,

As the shadows of leaving were driven away.

I traded the blood for the breath of another,

A high, heavy price for a miracle’s birth.

The scars are the map of a survivor, a mother,

Who bled out her soul to stay here on the earth.

The neon may flicker, the ink may run shallow,

But the life that was bought is a debt I still run�"

I walked through the valley, the dark, and the fallow,

To wake in the light of the eyes of my son.

Reviews

[ETERNITY]

Beautiful!
No more fitting words to describe it.
So Beautiful!
I love how you give such holy and even near-death tone to this blessing from God.

[deadgirlconfessions]

thanks so much i appreciate it