What Stays in the Hospital Room
by Hannelore · 12 July 2026 · Poetry
A lyrical text depicts keeping vigil at a mother's hospital bedside – the mechanical beeping, still hands, counting ceiling tiles. The narrator waits for the mother to wake and call them by their real name, while life outside continues indifferently. Everything distills into the realization that love sometimes means nothing more than staying.
The machine beside the bed beeps in a rhythm I know by heart after three days, like a song I never wanted to hear and now can't forget.
My mother sleeps with her mouth open, the hand that once braided my hair lies still now on the white blanket, smaller than I remembered it.
A nurse comes in, checks something, notes something, smiles briefly in my direction, a professional smile that helps anyway, more than she knows.
I count the ceiling tiles, sixty-four, while I wait for her to wake, to call me by my name once more, not the name of confusion she sometimes uses when the medication runs too strong.
Outside, a lawnmower runs, a child laughs somewhere, life goes on, unasked, unimpressed, while I sit here and learn that love sometimes only means: staying, even when there's nothing to do but stay.
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