Flutter Away

The moth kept pouring itself
against the porch light.
Over and over.
A tiny, dusty body
chasing something bright
that had no intention
of saving it.

I understood that.
Spent enough years
doing the same thing.
Following neon signs.
Half-empty glasses.
Things that looked warm
from a distance.

I was twenty-one,
standing beside my little brother
in a hospital room on Mercy Street.
Too young to understand
how fast a person
can become
a fractured memory.

It was supposed to be routine.
A gallbladder surgery.
Something ordinary.
Something people walked away from.

Then pneumonia came.
Machines humming.
White sheets.
That cold hospital smell
that tells you
something is changing.
Apathetic nurses.
Apologetic doctors.

My grandmother,
who’d always been there,
was suddenly fighting
for every breath.
Not dramatic.
Not like the movies.
Just small movements.
A chest rising.
A chest falling.
Milky eyes,
focused far, far away.

The last fluttering breaths
of someone leaving.

My brother and I stood there,
twenty and twenty-one,
watching childhood disappear
without asking permission.

Nobody tells you
when you become an adult.
There is no ceremony.
No music.
No announcement.
And there sure the hell isn’t a parade.

Sometimes it happens
under fluorescent lights,
beside a hospital bed,
while someone you love
takes one last breath.

Years later,
I still think about that moth.
Still beating its wings
against the glass.

Still believing
there has to be something
on the other side.

Maybe that’s what we all do.
Flutter against the things
we cannot change,
until finally we learn
the difference
between holding on
and letting go.