I told you it was okay. I told you that it was okay to let go. I told you I would hold you as you let go.
I told you I would hold you as you departed.
Until you departed.
I was desperate to love you one last time as a verb. I did the holding. I was the structure. You departed.
I told myself I was a harbor. My head told my heart that I could shepherd my child as she crossed a threshold. There was both an entrance, and an exit.
This body is still holding. This body is still bracing. I was the structure.
My body has not let go. My sweet girl, I did not let go.
One form held another’s, from her beginning to her end. I called myself mama. I told her I was her mama. That I was the one who would not let go.
It has been more than 24 months since; my body knew not to let go. Since I have known to hold on. Since my heart braced against an ending. Since my arm became a tool.
Time bleeds between an instant and eternity.
My arm became a tool. An instrument that does not let go. That has not let go. That is afraid to feel alive without her job. Dead arm.
Limb severed from an ocean. Severed from a vast body of waves and beauty and depth.
I came upon a lighthouse.
I had not recognized how dark it was to live without my limb. More precisely, I could not.
My arm is still holding my child. Holding. Bracing. There is no other way.
I am still bleeding, between an instant and eternity.
I was the lamp and the ocean. All of me. My arm and my heart and my child.
