Every day has two mornings
One with the sun
Where beams kiss your cheek
And you’re off on the run

And one with time
Where it’s the middle of the night
Yet today is suddenly gone.
Only artificial light

And your mind is turned on
And you can’t get it to quit
Racing to feel every feeling
That you can’t show the sun.

A twisted version of safe
Comes from feeling so alone
Because here I don’t feel guilty
For just being a human.

I looked out my window
On a dark April evening
And my heart lifted up.

One
Yellow
*****
Had bloomed.

Had pushed through the dirt without any sun
Had lasted the winter without any care.
The smallest yellow *****
Had bloomed

On its own
And it was ok.
And I was ok.
And we would both be ok.

It is a cliche
But nonetheless a truth
That I like
Long walks on the beach.
Walking is heaven but running is hell

On a beach
Feet slipping on soft sands once so soothing
Dragging back the more I push on
Forward, forward
Without a definite end.
I’ll still get to where I’m going
But for time I trade beauty
And for time I trade peace,
running.

I’m running in circles
-- No, spirals.
Getting closer and closer each time I come back around,
Will I ever actually get there?

The day I blossomed from my mother's womb
I had two blue eyes, ten pudgy fingers, ten tiny toes,
And 300 bones.
But as I’ve grown up, day by day, year by year, person after person,
I’ve been reduced to less --
Just 206.
Where did they all go? 94 gone
Since the time I was young
The infrastructure to my being has faded.

What happened since the time I believed  fairies flew through flowers.
Since I sat on magic carpets imagining kingdoms rushing by on my kitchen floor
Since I believed that I held undiscovered superpowers
If I concentrate I can levitate this book
That part of me is missing
I’m a trained machine that engrains into my mind what is inside that book.
And It tells me that I cannot make it fly.

What’s different from when I would stand three feet tall
In bubble gum cowgirl boots and glittering tiara tangled in tresses
Strutting around town never holding back
Flowing through squeals of joy, shrieks of anger and sobs of sadness
I lack the support. I’m missing 94 bones.
Hide my excitement, hide my frustration, huie my grief, hide my unhappiness,
In order to appear a pleasant and likeable human.

What changed since the days when I went
Springing out of my butterfly bed awaiting the new day
Maybe filled with sunshine, greeting pill bugs under pebbles.
Even a day with grey skies meant my favorite ladybug rain boots
I awake to stiffness.
Rain means clammy skin and frizzy hair.
Even the sun is clouded over as its glare becomes an inconvenience

How could 94 bones leave without notice?
But now it’s too late, they’re all gone away.
Gradually worn away
By time, by sleep, by terror, by souls.
94 pieces missing of my puzzle.
Leaving an abstract figure
Gradually hardening into my new skeleton.

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.