A little child watching TV, I was fed clichés and stereotypes all day long. I decided I'd never succumb to being put in a box. So I changed fast and furiously, always on top of what they thought of me. If they call me x, I'll be 56. So I changed and changed, going through piles after piles of masks.
Now I have forgotten what I look like.
I go to the mirror for answers but it spits my past disdain into my face. And I stand there, tired of not being, and trying to be. All these masks have changed my face and I am lost. Forever.

Nauseous and weighed down by a pit in my stomach. I feel the same things I felt that day in silences that often overwhelm my senses. I cried for you, I felt the insides of the void you left behind and cried some more.
I didn't know you as much as I should have. I didn't talk to you as much as I should have. I didn't hold your hand or massage your feet as much as I should have. I didn't understand that you could go away, as much as I should have.
I regret my callousness when I remember how they cried when you left us. When I remember how I cried when I thought of the pain everyone was going through.
Ever since I could see, I saw you. Smiling and praying and scolding. I never did expect that you would have to leave. We never think that the places we seen since birth could one day no longer be there, do we?
But thank you, thank you for calling me your grandson, for praying for me night after night, for imprinting powerful Bible verses into me. For giving me your vitamin candies. For holding my heavy hand in your frail one.
You are the kindest soul I have ever seen, always smiling, always talking to random people like they're your children. You smiled better than flowers did and spoke of only good things. Never did I hear a harsh word even begin to form on your lips.
I am sorry. If I could, I'd remember all your smiles and all your wrinkles. And all your love.

Thank you for being my grandmother.

I want to be alone,
to sit between the
concave hollows of my bones,
nestle beneath folds of skin,
shut my eyes and
make the world go dim,
just me and a pulse,
a heartrate pumping blood
and when I open them
it's not the floodlit streets,
wars, fires or anger I see
but the trees and fields;
the peace i wear like a glove,
vowing not to take it off the
minute things get tough.