Awakening

She never realized how much she wouldn’t
miss the slow ooze down her throat.
Never thought she’d wish she could recall
the last time she’d filled the hole in her
self with the cold spirit of bubbly,
smoldering sweet until it wasn’t.

She didn’t know she was saying goodbye
that day or night or noon she lifted
a trembling elbow for the last
time. Didn’t intuit in that inky
moment unmemorable
that she’d postpone her return
day by teetering day.

She couldn’t estimate the years of days
it would take to bid farewell to
her best friend, the demonic
love of her life and death choices.
Never willed, rather chose to act out
the gut wretch of separation.

She felt the onset of freedom
second by second, relentless
as a metronome, until a moment
was an hour, a hour a day, a day, a day
until came her surprise awakening—
like red bird chirping in a gift bag
or warm buttered toast.

Bev Fesharaki is an educator/poet who writes with Poets on the Coast in LaConner, Washington. Her work has been published in Moria, Typishly, Bangalore Review and numerous other journals and anthologies. She lives and writes by the water in Mukilteo, Washington.