Gone for Five Minutes
Sitting at my desk, trying to focus at work.
Put this in that folder there,
Type that data here,
Fill out all the little boxes…
What was that.
a ghost wind passes through me.
I continue to type
I continue to read
but something inside has been
toppled
and everything’s going gray.
oh god.
what is coming.
my stomach lurches.
please tell me this won’t last.
the world around me has lost all color.
Death has awoken
and rests his bony fingers
on my shoulder.
life is meaningless.
the world has stopped turning.
i’m back in that place again.
this cold, lonely cell
and i can’t remember how to cry.
five minutes pass… not long.
just as inexplicably
Death changes his mind.
wraps himself in his cloak
and curls back into a benign black ball in the corner of my mind.
as he retires, ambient warmth returns.
The world sets back into motion.
Color resurges into my reality.
I’m in my office again
Still typing away
Coworkers unaware
That for five minutes
I was briefly pushed
Out of their world.
Thank god
It didn’t last.
It didn’t last.
Fresh Hell 
This I love. You perfectly described it.
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❤
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Beautifully written, Sarah! Brilliantly vivid way of expressing it – this was so relatable.
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Thank you so much, Tom.
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Well, that certainly struck a nerve with me. Great piece!
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I hate to hear that but I’m glad you liked it 😀
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Sarah,
Wise beyond your years, but 5 minutes here and there will do that to a soul. Welcome back and, please, stay awhile…
Mona
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Thanks Mona! I’ll do my damndest
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I second that motion — please stay awhile! We all need your fresh voice, your unique insights and style. Thanks for the glimpse of gray — the glimpse is enough!
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Ooh that was great. Cold shivers!
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Ooh really? *pleased*
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This is an interesting one. Am I right in thinking you wrote this a few days before the guy who worked in your office died?
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That’s true. I hate to say because it’ll take the magic out of it, but poet to poet… it was triggered when a sad song came on my headphones. Brought me down severely. I’ll normally get a little melancholy when I hear a sad song or the like, but this was a brief brush of clinical depression. So weird.
Later on though I had a couple of bad days so I think it was just instability as a precursor.
I didn’t know that guy well enough for him to haunt me. And I’m nowhere near psychic enough! Never seen a ghost.
Probably a lot more explanation than was warranted. But, now you have all the data. Haha
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rereading it, it is a little bit freaky when taken in that context
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I feel connected to you for all sorts of reasons, so never think you’re giving me too much information. I hope you’ve lost all sight of the yawning abyss. It can be horribly tenacious sometimes.
I once lived with a ghost. She sat on my feet when I was in bed at night. For years after my father died, I’d often smell his tobacco (ordered from a retailer 200 miles away) and feel his hand on the small of my back, I had far weirder, vividly visual experiences after my daughter’s partner died, I don’t believe in ghosts – and if you’re wondering whether this is one of my silly jokes, it’s not. Ghosts don’t exist. Psychosis does. Ghosts drift away from confessed psychotics, thereby curing the psychosis. If you’ve seen the movie A Beautiful Mind, you’ll know it doesn’t always work, but it worked for me.
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Whoa. What beautiful and eerie ghosts you’ve experienced.
I’m inclined to agree with you about the nature of ghosts. People who see them tend to be under severe stress at the time. I also think we have a lot of power to see what we want to see.
That being said, there remains a handful of things which can’t be explained, like when people know their relative has been in a car crash a hundred miles away.
I try to keep an open mind… partly because I would just like for them to be real! Partly because I’ve heard stories from very reliable friends, and it makes me wonder.
The yawning abyss has been banished, for now. I blame diet brain. I have determined that I need to eat more fats… for my sanity.
I feel the connection, too. Please use it to send me cheesecake!!! For my sanity… 😀
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We’re definitely on the same page; cheesecake, a wise choice… for your sanity…
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