100 story challenge (Tom Hiddleston imagines) *edited*

Poetry (Tom)

A/N: So this story is based off the poem by Simon Armitage called Mother, any distance. Which is about the connection between mother and child through an invisible string. It is an amazing poem done by an amazing poet. I definitely recommend reading Simon Armitage poems, especially Remains. I'm not a massive poetry fan but he is so good... fangirl moment over. hehe. ⚠This chapter also deals with death of a parent, so be warned.⚠

Mother, any distance greater than a single span
requires a second pair of hands...

I couldn't bear to see her so frail, and weak. Lying on the bed almost comatose, her eyes barely open and her hands too painful to hold.

You come to help me measure windows, pelmets, doors
the acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors...

"It's okay darling... everything's... going to be okay," she whispers to me. I don't want to be by her, but I am desperately trying to stay with her.

Why did it have to happen to her? Why couldn't it be someone else? Why couldn't it be me?

You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape, recording
length, reporting metres, centimetres back to base, then leaving ...

Tom held my other hand softly as he sat on the chair by my mother's bed. I lay next to her trying not to cry, but the tears flow anyway.

"Don't cry my dear... it doesn't look good on you," she tries to wipe them away, but my head is too far for her to reach.

"I don't want you to go mum."

Up the stairs, the line still feeding out, unreeling
years between us. Anchor. Kite...

"I know darling," she whimpered, I made her cry, "but we have to say goodbye sometime."

I squeeze both their hands tighter and the emotional pain becomes almost worse than her physical pain.

"We will still have each other... no matter what. You'll have me."

I looked down at our feet, brushing up against each other, all there was... was bone.

I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb
the ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where something has to give.

"We have to let go of the ones we love y/n... you know that pf all people," she fails to tighten her grip of my hand.

I rest my head on hers, "I can't let you go... I don't want to let you go."

I sob into her hair as Tom rubs my side with his other hand. He was as upset as I was.

"Do you remember... when your pet rabbit, nibbles passed away?" I nodded and she looked up at me.

"You were devastated. But you learnt to let go... you said that it wanted to travel to the skies... I love you y/n."

Two floors below you fingertips still pinch
the last one-hundredth of an inch... I reach towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky

to fall or fly...

A/N: I hope you understood my inference of the fact that the child, i.e. you, is trying to understand that they have to let go before the parent stretches that string to the limit. I know that Tom wasn't really in this one but I didn't want it to be the boring Tom reading to you... although that's cute, I wanted it to be different. Just for legal reasons I don't own the poem obviously, I copied it from a book I own. Share your thoughts I hope you liked it.❤