my poetry - kelsey loch

Only the Beginning

Before eleven,
"stroke" was just a word thrown around-
dramatic, meaningless, exaggeration of stress.
It was never a hospital hallway.
Never a body turning against itself.
Never my father.

That morning,
the silence was louder than anything.
The kitchen was full-
not with laughter, but with relatives who spoke in fragments, in whispers that curled like cigarette smoke.
I remember the way the light hit the floor.
How I stared at it
so I wouldn't have to stare at those faces.
That was the first time
I felt myself slip away-
like I had stepped outside my body
and left a child right behind in that doorway.

That was the beginning-
of highways stretching endlessly ahead,
of hospital chairs that never softened.
The beginning of speaking gently to adults
as if I were the one who understood,
the beginning of standing taller
because someone had to.

Months passed
and hope stitched itself carefully
through every small improvement.
He was getting better.
We clung to that sentence
like it was the only hope we had.

Then, years later,
the word returned-
quieter this time, and crueler.
The other side,
the side that still obeyed,
fell silent as well.

I remember thinking
surely this is the worst of it.
Surely the universe has finished
taking what it wants.

But childhood doesn't end in one moment.
with every whispered conversation,
every drive to somewhere sterile, bright and white,
every night you pretend you're not afraid
because someone smaller than you is watching.

Before eleven,
"stroke" was just a word.
But that morning,
it was the dividing line between before and after,
between being held and learning how to hold yourself.

And as much as I wished
that day had been the end of it-
as much as I prayed to a god I never believed existed for a neat conclusion-

it was truly
only the beginning.