Blue: A Poetic Response

I stare into the blue screen for a long time. Sometimes my eyes flicker back and forth, waiting for a change: but no. There is no change, only blue; maybe the slight ripple of pixels or wavy edges, but always blue. I am trapped with Jarman in this blueness and I am frustrated for me and for him and for everyone else. I am impatient, feet rapidly tapping the ground. My arms twitch listening to the drip drip and the side effects nausea shaking, vomiting, chills, fever, headache, bleeding from the stomach, and a million more. A lump forms as 30 or 40 pills are taken just to live – just barely.

 “I shall not win the battle with the virus.” 

I want to reach out my hand and save something that has already passed and he knows his passing and it makes me want to call out more and say no, do not give up, but I know the end. I know of the suffering, but don’t understand it. I am whisked from waiting room to waiting room; no name, but numbers, for the poor voice. Dehumanizing. I grasp more images and more pain from the bell ringing in my ears and the voices singing, jagged like broken glass. Anger rises in my chest as dying is the only option, yet living longer is prolonged suffering.

More doctor’s visits. Eye doctors. Lights, disturbing flashes. I rub my eyes thinking of it. I am standing next to him in the room yet he does not know, or maybe he does. Blue is his reality, and for now, it is mine. Blue invades my visions and I do not fight it off but let it melt into me. It is my favorite color, and I wonder if I could get sick of it, as I see what he sees. I conclude that I could. I try to grasp every poetic verse whispering into my ear, my pen scribbling and scribbling the beautiful words yet I know these words do not come from a beautiful place. He speaks of his dead friends.

 “Others faded like flowers cut by the scythe of the blue-bearded reaper, parched as the waters of life receded.” 

Brutally beautiful. Sadly tremendous. Tremendous sadness. Yet I still sit here and take it in like a follower of a church sitting in the pews, nodding their head as the father speaks. But this is no father, this is no church; this is a film, and this is the voice of a dead man dying. A ghost whispering blue hues into my ear. I am unsettled. I should be unsettled. I hear once again the names of his friends: David, Paul, Howard, Terry. Sometimes I hold my breath, waiting to see if he will speak again. And he does. The music and voices move within me, eyes closed or open, but even with eyes glued to the screen I feel as if I am splayed into a trance, staring into the blue. The ocean crashes again and again and the sea of blue takes me under and I watch from beneath with him.

“Blue upon your grave.” 

The pressure crushes my chest and the ending silence leaves me empty.