Poetry Saved My Life: memoir excerpt

Picture of Jade Tran, the author of this excerpt (courtesy of Jade Tran)

When I was 18, I heard the words, “We cannot find a heartbeat.” 

I heard that a couple of times over; several translations of that painful combination of words from several solemn faces dressed in navy blue scrubs and white coats. Of course, this was a regular thing for them to announce, as it was unfortunately common. They probably struggled to muster up the courage their first few times, but after a while, it had to become easier and easier. Though for me, those words pierced my soul and doubled back for a second slice, as I slowly walked out of that doctor’s office. 

The waiting room was nice. It had rows of chairs; the uncomfortable kinds that squeak when you sit and anxiously shift around. It was full of hopeful parents, children under the age of two, and receptionists. All four walls were decorated with Sesame Street characters. Hi Big Bird, Hi Elmo. 

At every other appointment, I was not in the slightest bothered by their smiling faces, instead, I was filled with an acceptable amount of nostalgia. But this day, the day with the words, it seemed like those smiling faces were taunting me, laughing, and praising the fact that I would never see their faces again. 

The air was filled with fog. Thick, suffocating fog, the noticeable kind. Except, I didn’t notice. Instead, I noticed the mini steps I was making back to the car, through the busy hospital parking lot. I noticed the unexplainable feeling brewing inside of me. The one I knew I could never explain to anyone else. No one could feel the way I did. The tiny rain droplets from the cloudy sky began to fall on my bare arms, as it was the middle of a hot, summer, one of the worst and I was dressed for the temperature, not the rain. As each droplet fell, drip, drip, my mind began to race, my shock froze and my bottled-up emotions began to pour out. 

He was no longer holding my hand. But, I remember him holding my hand before the words. I remember. 

He jammed the car keys into the ignition. We sat there in silence before we drove off. The silence choked me, I was suffocating, drowning in the wordless air. Why wasn’t he holding my hand? 

The coldest of tears began to sprint down my hot-to-the-touch cheeks. Why was I crying? Each day before that one I had prayed to God for those words to meet me, wherever I was, and save me. I had prayed to God to be normal again, to be an eighteen-year-old again. I had prayed for all of these selfish things and now, my prayers had come to fruition. So, why, was I crying? 

The remainder of the car ride was tough. I never thought that a car ride in the rain would change me forever. As we got closer and closer to the exit near my neighborhood, I untangled myself from the pits of the passenger seat to the sound of banging on the steering wheel. I glanced over to find him throwing his head onto the wheel, tears coating the leather lining.

“Of course, of course this happened to me. I can never get what I want, something bad always has to happen to me.” He screamed, shouted, and yelled aggressively as he sobbed. He still wasn’t holding my hand; instead, his hands were gripped tightly on the wheel, and they never left it. I sobbed with him. 

I no longer like car rides in the rain. He never asked me how I felt. It feels like the rain forgot to too. 

Every day after that day, the day with the words, was hell. My body ached, my mind was jumbled, and my thoughts were inconsolable. I laid in my twin-sized bed, the one I had since my sophomore year of high school, and sobbed. During those days, I never ran out of tears. My four walls, the big pile of clothes to the left of me, and my journal watched me. They watched me 

night into day, and day out, and they kept me company. I thank those three things for being there for me. 

No one knows about the one day during that week. The day when I was on my carpet, flailing back and forth, weeping to be understood. The phone call on the other side of the door asked me to explain my pain. To measure it on a scale of 1-10, like I was a little kid who busted my knee riding my scooter for the first time. 

But no, instead, I was a child, a child who had lost her first child. 

I was begging my mother to explain to the people in the navy blue scrubs and white coats, that I was suffering and did not want to rate my pain. I wanted to live in my pain, to stay on that carpet, to live in that room, forever. But, I had to rate my pain. I had to diminish all of the feelings down to a one-digit number. I chose 9. I hate that day. 

*** 

When I was 18, I encountered my best friend. 

I never knew that she would exist among white empty pages and blank phone screens, but she did. The first poem I ever wrote, and proudly, was on her pages. I had always thought that the day with the words could never be explained or empathized with among my friends or the people who followed me on Instagram. But, those aching pages allowed me to express it in a way that could rock hundreds of people across a phone screen. 

She was brown. A beautiful, leather brown with little marks of wear on the edges of her skin. She was overwhelmed with emptiness and appeared as if she was screaming desperately to be engraved. To be touched even. 

At first, I wrote for pity. I wrote so that everyone could feel how I felt. I wrote selfishly, vulnerably, and with an untapped rawness. And it was so beautiful and so somber, and dark, and soon my insides were routinely being spilled onto white pages as if someone had slaughtered my heart wide open on an operator’s table. 

There were times, months after that day, when I wanted to let it all go. I wanted to never look at myself in the mirror or hear my name slip off anyone’s tongue again. I wished to be erased. Erased from the thoughts of those doctors, my family, and the people I called my best friends. But, poetry, and the dumping of authentic feelings transformed into words, convinced me to stay. I could write however I wanted, no judgment, no responsibility, all realness, and whenever I wanted and for nobody but myself. I loved that day; the day when I realized that something as simplistic as poetry, had the power to save my life: