He abandoned me when I needed Him most,
plucked my heart from my chest
and let me bleed out,
much like the rest of my family.

He was hidden in the bushes nearby,
as we all lay in a clearing,
quivering from everything but the cold.

He saw us staring into space,
seeing everything fall apart,
watching me slowly stand up.

He watched as I tried to lift my sisters,
mom,
as I still try to do so.
I don't know what gave me the strength,
what keeps us all moving forward,
but He wasn't there for us.

We were able to lift ourselves up
from the wreckage,
and keep moving forward.

Sometimes I still look back,
past the clearing to the bushes,
and I see nothing hiding,
                                 as nothing hid before.

While you lay asleep and dreaming,
          I sit, conscious,
                             writing and thinking and
                                                                     dreaming.
When you awake to work as the sun rises,
            I lay in bed
      asleep,
                              but not dreaming.
When you work
        and complete all your given tasks with relative ease,
                I dreamlessly rest.
This, so that we may dream at the same time
                                                             about similar things
                                                    and I can trap our dreams in print
                                         always together,
                                                                   harmoniously
                                                                                                       like us.

I don't know about butterflies
                     but
                         I know happiness.
In my stomach,
           I feel only hunger,
                                             fear
                                    and sometimes indigestion;
                                               but never butterflies.
Even when I see her
              and she smiles at me,

I feel happy
                but my stomach is inactive,
                                        silent.
       ­                                   
But
  when our fingers interlock
                     her eyes meet mine
                   and our smiles parallel,

                         I cannot help
                                                  but
      ­                                                   feel at home.