Julia Ward

I found myself alone in an Emergency Room last year. I couldn't hear the shouting or even my own breathing as they pulled me onto a gurney with cold white sheets. My heart had been stabbed by a screaming white light that tore through me like a lazer. When my heart stopped, all I wanted was to see the dazzling red dragonfly that sat motionless in the palm of my hand so many summers ago.

I live now with a blinding heart, not sure when the jerky, tortured rythmn will stop.

Lightning can not kill me.

My soul has been stripped clean of my former self. My soul drifting like a leaf in a dark stream.

I am no longer able to paint. My music is slow and tortured. I thought I could write, just ask the neighbor's cat.

Perhaps it would be better if you just listened for a while. At least until the storms come and the lightning chases me off the porch.

julia ward