Periculum Mortale

My little sister died after a very long illness that resulted from many years of drug use. I journaled through her stays in the hospital and then after her death. This is it all distilled. There are two different tones, and I didn’t know which one to share, so I decided to share both.

You wild animal—
feral, carved down to nothing
but survival instinct.
The abandonment of a child
is a cut that never heals;
a wound left open for decades
until it rots, poisons,
and rewrites the person
who might have been.

You never had a chance.

Trust betrayed by enablers.

Trust betrayed so early,
so relentlessly,
that introspection was never possible—
only defense,
only hunger,
only the slow hardening
into self-indulgence, entitlement, apathy.

your mask of jealousy and bitterness
melting
into the bones of your emaciated face.

Crystal woke you up.
Captain Cody dragged you down.
Lysergic Acid Diethylamine
scattered whatever pieces were left.
None of this was accidental.
None of it surprising.
Every step a breadcrumb
leading straight to the ending
we all saw coming
and were helpless to stop.

I have seen
your periculum mortale:
skeletal, toothless,
strings of hair hanging
from a lice-riddled scalp—
the late remains of someone
forty going on ninety,
as though time itself
was too cruel
to let you grow old naturally.

Your mind—broken—
serves only
the body’s addictions now.

Such demented madness:
all your potential,
your intelligence,
your guile and guts—
now twisted,
laser-focused
on manipulation
instead of survival.

Enduring, somehow,
as if possessed
by something ancient and hungry—
a famished monster wearing your skin,
insatiable,
starving for more self-destruction,
leeching your own life
until nothing’s left
but a dried-up carcass.

It entered

when you first died
Pupils blown,
glassy-eyed,
straddling the line
between dead
and deader—
a grotesque,

heartbreaking facsimile
of the girl
who never
stood a chance
against a universe
this cruel.

---

She’s malnourished,
no immunity left,
yet still finds a way
to be a self-entitled,
manipulative brat—
and even that, they say,
might be a sign
of further neurological decline.
Trauma writes itself
into every cell.

She can’t inhale,
can’t swallow,
can’t cough—
no physical possibility
of smoking—
yet she won’t stop asking
for a cigarette.
The only communication
she’ll give.

So they rely on my brother
and me
to make decisions
she can no longer comprehend.
He’s coming next week
to talk her into signing
an advance directive
so the choice
won’t be ours
alone.

Every time we think
this is it,
she pulls through
like some cruel magic trick.
Acceptance, desperation, numbness—
I spin between them.
Right now,
numb.
Cold.
Needing this to end,
one way or another.

Then the word:
palliative care.
The same path my mother walked
one week before hospice.
They’ll try to heal her, yes,
but no one expects
a recovery
that will last.

Expected—
yet the wind
is knocked out of me.
Waves of heartache,
followed by blankness,
repeat, repeat.
My heart breaks for her.
She made her choices,
yes—
but she never had a chance.
From the beginning,
she was doomed.

Crisis after crisis—
a yearly ritual.
I can’t heal from anything
because everything
is always happening.
It’s like clinging to a boulder
in a rushing river,
the water beating me
against jagged stone
over
and over
and over.

Then—another call.
Found unresponsive.
They called a code.
Back to ICU.
The nurse won’t say more.
I wait for the doctor
with a stomach full of ice.

She keeps crashing.
Her body wants out.
I need to talk to my brother
about DNR.
She’s being tortured.

But he’s optimistic now—
unrecognizable optimism.
“They revived her,”
“maybe she’ll wake up,”
“maybe she’ll communicate.”
Dude.
She’s broccoli.
He’s coping, I know—
but hope is also a blade
that keeps cutting her.

The MRI:
Central Pontine Myelinolysis—
myelin in the pons
destroying itself
after too-rapid correction
of sodium deficiency.
No cure.
No reversal.
Fifty-fifty
only if caught instantly.
It wasn’t.

She moves her limbs—
not paralyzed—
but her eyes are blank
and she will not speak.
A body
forgetting how to be a person.

Again—
unresponsive.
Again—
a code.
Again—
ICU.

The questions pile:
What caused it?
When did she code?
Why wasn’t I notified?
What did neurology say?
What is her prognosis?
Will you repeat the MRI?
Is anything
going
to change?

Three options:
a) stabilize her
for a nursing facility
she never wanted.
b) keep her here
and let her decline—
no extraordinary measures.
c) remove the tubes,
feed her what she wants,
let her do what she wants—
and she will die
in days
or weeks.

Option C
is mercy.

Her quality of life
is a plummeting graph.
Endless suffering
until death
finally collects her.
Letting go
is not cruelty;
prolonging this
would be.

Then the misinformation:
they said she couldn’t have visitors,
that even her boyfriend was kicked out.
But he was there,
the whole time,
talking her into leaving.
They tested her cognition—
she failed.
Medical hold.

He told her not to get the feeding tube
because she couldn’t go
to the shelter
with him.
But she refuses to eat.
The tube
is the only option.
He thinks we’re trying
to separate them.

We meet with palliative care.
Hospice.
Refusing PT,
refusing food,
refusing movement.
If we let her go,
she will die.
She doesn’t care.
She only wants him
to be happy.
He thinks he can care for her
himself.
He cannot.

Some people are beyond redemption—
like Ted Bundy—
and I am full of hate again.
But I have to tread lightly
or he’ll shut down.

Her boyfriend—
denial made flesh.
He believes
she’ll get better,
that they’ll live together
in the new apartment,
that love alone
is an antidote
to organ failure.

Her life
could have been different.
She had so much potential—
but bitterness
rotted her from within.
She suffered
to punish us
for not rescuing her,
a princess trapped in a tower
with the key
always
in her own hand.

We give it a week.
Sometimes people rally
at the end.
My mother did—
woke up joyful,

Wanted me to make her

Scrambled eggs

With soft yoke—

It’s a delicate balance

To get it right,

But I learned from the best.

She wanted a Facebook page,

When she hadn’t been on a computer

Since the 90s.
She wanted to reconnect,

dreaming of years
when months
were all she had left.

The next day
she was unconscious.
One week later
gone.

I am no stranger
to surprise tragedies.

Bretanya Lyn Swift took her last breath at 1:15 AM on June 24, 2021. She was 41.