It’s been a year like this
The two of us together in a room
with separate beds and separate states
You hooked up in tubes
and I kept watch.
In a year there were four hospital stays for a week or longer
in February, June and October
and this last one sixteen days in January.
The scent of wipes and stains
and the blood flowing within and without
wrapped us like a sad song,
as each visit did not get better
as each day breaks, your mind aches
your voice call for your mother.
You kept asking where am I, why I’m here
but the answers disappear in you
as you play back the questions over and over like a loop.
This is how your withered bean robbed you
you misunderstand all you see
your memory and your present clouded in misery
and the irony that your favorite song is ‘Yesterday’
that you could still sing in your bed.
You and I have these memories
of you sharing records when I was six
of songs from four Liverpool lads
the music that let me in your secrets.
Last Sunday night perhaps you knew that secret already
that there is no fixing this hole
on Monday you leave with eyes closed.
The memories may lose their meaning
but the songs from the walrus, revolver and rubber soul tell us
that love is all you need.
“Golden slumbers fill your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise,
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
and I will sing a lullaby.
…
And in the end,
the love you take
is equal to the love you make.” – Golden Slumbers/ The End
—
Tyrone A. Velez was an English major at Ateneo de Davao University. He is a freelance writer, a journalist, and a Beatles fan like his uncle.