Hello, loves! It has been a hot second since my last post on this blog, though I’m not neccessarily scheduling myself to put out so many posts per week or even on a monthly basis. Frankly, I don’t believe I have enough readers who require a deadline for anything, so it probably won’t matter if I do or not.

However, WOW, it’s been a week. So if you are on my personal Facebook, you are aware of this: my father underwent his fifth spinal surgery and endured a C Diff infection promptly afterwards. It was…shocking and incredibly worrisome. You really hope for any loved one to go through their surgery and go home right after to recover in their own bed, but any surgery has its risks. Unfortunately, my dad’s back required hardware replacement, literal screws, bolts, and rods that needed full replacements or repairs, so it’s amazing he hadn’t experienced an infection the first four surgeries.

He is fine now, at home with my mom and sister who flew in from Alaska to help make sure he settles in okay.

As grateful and relieved as we are that he is home now, the world felt so gray and cold during that uncertain time of waiting for more news. During my part-time job at my church’s office, the minister and I talked about Dad and how eager we were for some good news. She put it perfectly when she said, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

Hence, today’s poem post.

I wrote this poem when I was, as you guessed it, waiting for my phone to buzz with either a text or a phone call. Agonizing hardly covers that jagged feeling that never settles while you’re waiting on standby, helpless to control the uncertain situation at hand. You feel every second tick by, and every hour feels heavier with each one that goes by. Hours worth of biting a sore lip, bouncing a shaking knee, and taking steady breaths through a tight chest.

So here it is, love it or hate it:

Waiting…

Patience is the most agitating virtue,

which I will never earn.

As the ticking on the wall grows,

The still silence of my phone drawing longer,

I wait.

I breathe.

I shift,

in my seat as discomfort

rises up like floodwaters.

And I sit in its murky pool,

uncertain,

impatient,

and frightened.

Running out of air,

as anxiety grips my throat

like a fearful hand.

But I’m never running out of

“What if…”s

“When will…?”s,

or “what’s happening now?”

Helplessness blinds me in

a cold, frigid dark.

And I’m bound to my spot,

constricted in a dark state of waiting.

And its companion, witholding silence.

I cannot do or say

what will come next or when.

So I sit.

I breathe.

I shift in this seat covered

in invisible tacks and pins.

I’ll wait as long as the digital clock

counts numbers and in my head is the

tick-tock, tick-tock.

I’ll dread all of this but will accept

when it inevitably

takes even longer.

___

I hope you enjoyed my poem. If so, leave a comment to say so. Subscribe and share to the page for more free content from this writer who is just trying to survive life’s hurdles and the waiting times in between.

Have a great week, everyone!

-A. Rose