I can’t go in.
The smell of medicine that isn’t working,
Desperately masked by overwhelming sanitizer that stings my nose as I inhale.
No sunlight makes its way through the windows.
It fails to even reach through the clouds.

I haven’t seen blue skies in months.
I’m cold, clammy from the perpetual rain conspiring with a nervous sweat.

This room is too big.
Too big and only four people sitting around the same coffee table.
There are four people, but no one makes eye contact --
They try to hide a fear they never expected.

I stare ahead at the doors.
The doors I simultaneously crave and dread opening,
Is ignorance torture of bliss?

Why am I out here?
Why aren’t I in her room?
I know she’s in pain, why can’t anyone help her?
Is she dying?
What if she’s dying?
What if she’s dying all alone?
What if she’s dying surrounded by strangers with medical degrees?
What if she’d prefer that I’m not there?
What if I exhaust her, bother her, multiply her suffering?
What if she doesn’t recognise me when I go in?
What if her hearts beating and her eyes are blinking, but she’s not there?

What if I never get to see my mom again?

To smell her perfume,
Hear her voice, her laugh,
Touch her skin.
Feel her soft hand holding mine,
Feel her arms around me as she holds me close
Keeping out any monsters that could poison my mind.

Those monsters don’t scare me anymore.
My fear comes from sitting in an empty house that’s no longer a home.
My fear is knowing without you, I’ll never be at home.
My fear is the thought that you died resenting your daughter
Who never took the chance to say goodbye.
My fear is that on those days where the sky is gray, my eyes are tired, my ears don’t want any more music, food tastes like sawdust, I can’t get up from my bed, and my heart feels gray, that I won’t bounce back, my soul will be consumed by the emptiness caused by your absence.
My fear is every morning waking up. The feeling that you’re gone, and there’s nothing I can do to ever see you again.

I hesitate
To admit that I tend to put things off until they absolutely must be dealt with

I was born here.
I’ve moved between neighborhoods but
These mountains have watched me grow up.

It’s always been the same
But somehow different
Things get older and people get bigger
Sometimes better sometimes a little scratched up
But they never get worse

There can always be found new in the old
Born again without ever dying
So we have to allow the old to grow
Let it be free from expectation and reputation
And say goodbye

If the heart is a muscle
How can it never tire and never rest?
I worry that when it’s pounding in my chest
It’ll eventually reach a breaking point
Where it can’t take anymore
“never again”'s and things left unfinished.
The price you pay for loving is losing
And because I can lose I know my heart is full and I have been given so much

From the sidewalks to the sunsets to the imaginary rattlesnakes
To fire pits and family dinners and my favorite burger place
To the family I’m not related to but always offer me a home
And the high school that may be falling apart but is held up by the people inside

But it can’t last forever, so
Even when the flowers die
And the vases sit empty
And act as gravestones to the things once celebrated
I will come lay a fresh bouquet
Say Hello to Goodbyes
And love and remember
The ones who made me.

I thought I lost someone.

She wouldn’t be back, and now
Music struck no more notes
With her heart and she spoke
Without song,
Lips moving but no light
From within would guide her
To a place that was home.

Gave up swimming upstream
And slept without dreams
Slept until it seemed
The water that held me
Would drown me.

And maybe it did.

But rescued from purgatory
My head broke the surface
And i gasped for the
Cool morning air.

And as I inhaled
The sweet taste of life
Filled up my mouth
Like a **** made of summer fruit.
Something about January
Made my heart open up
And thaw whatever frost
Had frozen it still.
It’s pounding to the beat -
I am loved, I am loved -
And I make it repeat
Until finally, finally
I am free from defeat
And

I finally feel like myself again.