Barry Stock photo
By
Mirissa D. Price
You had the beginning of something in your hands
You had the beginning of something in your hands
felt the cool warmth of its body, the texture as real as
the drop of fresh blood on your palm. It was almost
rapid-fire enough.
It was almost, and then it wasn’t.
You haven’t slept in days, the ‘what ifs’
Keeping you up. What if somebody listened; what if
somebody helped. What if
blood were an amorphous shape you could hold.
Maybe your grip would have been something
that mattered
before their lives, your hope slipped away.
But what hurts the most is not even
the loss; it’s the memory
that once, you were in that same place. Once,
you did everything they didn’t do
and lived. And you want it all to mean something.
Though not every bullet has a purpose.
Just a point, that almost landed
and a movement that almost
worked. Like every relationship you almost had
that never happened.
You never look back at almost love
and say, ‘It failed.’ You just
begrudgingly let go.
And all that remains is a shadow
of almost – the worst kind of loss, leaving you
nothing to hold. Your arms craving
the curve of a second chance. Your heart craving
the whisper of support:
You are entitled to care. You are entitled to
try. You are entitled to
call it a heartbeat,
no matter how fleeting the results. You are entitled
to yell back at the law,
your friend’s blood
almost smeared
on a bald eagle’s claws.
You are entitled to help everyone
almost remember:
It was real. And most of all,
you still matter
Mirissa D. Price
Mirissa D. Price is a 2019 DMD Candidate at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and future pediatric dentist. As a child, doctors told Mirissa that she would live in a nursing home, confined to a wheelchair, crippled by pain. Instead, Mirissa uses her medical experiences to inspire others, living each day with a passion to spread pain-free smiles through her dental work, writing, improv comedy performances, and nonprofit work with children. Her writing fills the pages of Yellow Chair Review, Tuck Magazine, The Huffington Post, Five2One Magazine, and more. You can stay up to date with Mirissa’s writing at mirissaprice.wordpress.com and follow @Mirissa_D_Price on Twitter or Facebook. You can even take home a few inspirations of your own, at Mirissa’s Etsy shop, A Smile Blooms.