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Roses are red,
Violets fade too,
You hide in the shade,
Yet shimmer with hue.
-**
Still Untitled: 2
My father walked me down the aisle,
But my mother held my arm.
He went with me,
But we went not towards the altar,
But towards the door.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And the ***** rang through the church,
Humming through the elaborate crown molding,
Carved by my ancestors.

He went,
Not beside me,
But before me,
And I watched,
As he was illuminated by the bright,
Overbearing,
Texas sun.

My father walked me down the aisle,
But I did not wear white.
My father walked me in silence,
And I shed tears not for a man standing at the altar,
But for the one I would never see again.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And no veil obscured my face.
All eyes were upon me, but not for my pristine beauty,
Instead for my clenched jaw and furrowed brow,
Severe and fierce to distract from my glassy eyes.

My father did not leave me at the end of our walk to sit beside my mother.
She clung to me for support and sobbed breathlessly,
Loudly,
Unavoidably,
And I carried her with one hand,
My sister the other,
And walked towards my future.
A future family,
Not one person more,
But one person less.
I walked,
One final time,
With him.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And I will never forget it.
Hundreds of eyes isolating my family from the crowd,
Slow and muffled sounds drowning in the deafening beat of my heart,
Blurred faces staring,
Black heels clacking against the cobbled path from the church,
The anguished wails of my mother,
The whimpering of my sister,
And the wooden box that glided before us,
Pulling,
A string tied to our patriarch,
The pin key of our family,
Pulled taut and then snipped with the slam of the hearse doors.

My father walked me down the aisle,
Before I had a chance to grow up.
He walked me,
Out of the church,
Away from the altar,
Never to be walked again.
Close the door
slip the latch and let it fall
I am sad to say farewell
but I must leave you all,
imagine me at peace
freed from earthly things,
I am the autumn breeze
a winter wind that sings,
I am rain, I am sky,
a part of everything,
we did not say goodbye,
I am summer, I am spring
blossom, light as air,
don't think of me as gone
look around and I’ll be there
I have written this for my dad's funeral, which is in a couple of weeks
Shadows 7d
Your chair stays untouched
I still set a second plate
Grief eats next to me.
  7d Shadows
RM
And with you gone,
I was afraid I’d forget you.

But I was wrong.

I see you in everything—
in every wave that comes ashore to greet me,
in every song the birds sing
outside my window.

Even at night,
I find you between the stars.

And I wish I could leave the earth
just to visit you.

But I can’t—
so I lie on the cold stones,
look up at the sky,
and envy the stars.

Oh, how lucky they are
to be in your presence.
For the ones we still look for in the sky.
First post—thank you for reading.
That morning when I’d first heard of your departure,
I cursed the sun—how dare it beam through my window,
how dare it attempt to warm my skin?

I was filled, for just a moment,
with a rage I couldn’t swallow,
as I picked mulberries
and their juice stained my quivering lips.

Birds sang at your funeral—
their songs couldn’t drown out your father’s grief.
The same birds I’d spend months shooing away
from the fresh soil where you were laid.

For weeks, as I’d drive to work,
I’d spew hatred at the stars—
scattered so carelessly in front of me.
They mocked my loneliness with their togetherness.

I hate that you’re gone.
I hate that I know
that the stars would go on shining without me, too.
maybe one day I'll run out of grief to write about, I kinda hope so.
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