Linger

The machine by your bed
bleeps to tell me
you are alive.

I would not know
any other way. You
are not
living.

You linger
on
and
on,
neverendingly
in this place.
You need
a machine to breathe.
You were always
a free spirit. Nothing
could ever
hold you
down.
Until you became
tethered to this Earth
by machines
rather than by love.

Your hand rests at your side.
If I held it,
would you feel?
If I kissed your lips,
would you ever know?
If only one thing can ever reach you again,
let it be that you are still, and ever
my love.
But this form
lying in your bed,
tubes and machinery
an extension of itself, this is not
you, and it is not living.

It only lingers,
as does my heart,
every beat praying
that this machine
will break
down
before I do.