I don’t remember what you look like,
but that doesn’t stop the memories.
I’m sure you’ve grown older.
Maybe you know what you did to me
or maybe you still don’t care.
But sometimes my heart still races
and I panic, thinking I saw you,
only to remember
I don’t even know
what you look like.

Staring at a blank screen,
television oddly silent,
even though the silence kills.

People never talk about
how lonely alone time is
and yet I'm sinking into the
night sky, all alone.

I wonder if I'll
ever learn to love myself.

Glass shatters,
startling the mind of
an elusive dream;
there is little in this world
that comes easy for you,
but that means nothing
when you succeed.

The time has come for you to venture out;
independence is a silent killer,
lurking through the never ending days.
I know what you fear most is yourself.

The unpleasant truth is
you’re the only one who can get you through these days;
you’re so much stronger
than you realize.

I know you never imagined
your life as it is
but you take every trial
as a chance to persevere
and you've made the best
of yourself.

Your children will look back
and wonder how you did it,
as I do,
and you'll smile as you tell them
you just did what you had to,
but god, you do so much more.

You make me want to believe
in fate, in destiny,
but instead,
I believe in you.

You can do anything.

You can do it all.

I've never questioned
          "is this love?"
I knew from the very moment
you laid your eyes upon me.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating,
but just a little bit.

It was love at almost first sight
          (second? third?)
Love at first touch,
first time holding hands,
first kiss on your couch...
Love before I dared to say "I love you"
because I had to be sure,
and I was.

I'll admit, I've had my doubts
but, I swear, never about you
only whether this was too good to be true
and it's not;
it's just perfect enough
for us.

My breast swelled
As if filling with helium
And taking off
Into the sky.
They were anchored
Into my chest and instead
Left stretch marks
Reminding me
Of their attempted escape.

I look at the marks
As mistakes, imperfections
But you look at me
As if I am beautiful.

You play connect the dots
With my birthmarks,
My freckles,
Joining my twinkle toes
To my earlobes
And I question
Why I was made the way I am
While you label me
Beautiful.

Maybe I was made
For you.

How is it
You can still have so much control
Half my life later?

You should have been
A blip on my radar
A ****** month
Maybe a ****** year
But here we are
16 years later
And I can still be brought to tears
By your name.

When you died,
I thought I put you to rest.
I was finally at peace
And you couldn't hurt me
Anymore.

I moved away
And left every memory behind.
And still, you sneak up
Behind me
In the middle of a dark alley
And terrorize me
From my mind.

How do I get away
From my own thoughts?

I tell my clients the same thing -
say "I am safe"
say "I survived"
say "I made it"
as if the present
suddenly makes my past
melt away

But there I was,
skidding into an almost accident,
just shy of crashing into a pole,
almost exactly a year later
almost exactly the same spot

And all I can think
is maybe I was supposed
to have died
that day

I know you'd say
"Be happy with all you have"
And emphazie gratitude;
Just focus on the positive,
As if that will make the pain
Disappear.

I know I should
Think abouthow lucky I was
To meet you;
Think about how amazing it is
To have such a great support,
To have such a strong beginning.

But today my heart aches
With loss, with grief,
Over everything I gave up
To get here.
Today, I just need you to let me
Feel the heartbreak.

I can't promise you forever.

Forever
is a time frame
that cannot be quantified.

I no longer make promises
that are
impossible to keep.

I can promise you
my now;
my tomorrow;
my heart.

I can promise you
my truth;
my love;
myself.

I promise you
today.

I know I said
I didn't want to promise forever
But somewhere
In the past year
I fell so hard
That forever is all
I want.

I want to balance
Forgiveness with boundaries
But I feel so hurt,
So heartbroken, betrayed
And I don't know what to say
So you will understand my tone
Without chasing you away.

Believe me when I say
I want to try again
But there will not be
Another second chance.

I am stumbling now
Over sadness, tears,
But I want to move towards the other side,
Towards you.

I think I'll get there.
Can you just wait
For me?

It wasn’t a flashback.
I sat there, staring at you
as if we were 10 years in the past
but my memories remained,
I remained.

I froze,
as if I could never move again
in a fit of panic –
Freeze Tag –
Bare and Vulnerable.
I tried not to cry
and almost failed.

It wasn’t until I got home
that I realized
you had a brother.
You had a mom and dad.
You were also a human
with hopes and dreams,
but somehow,
you just went so wrong.

I thought I ran into a ghost
and instead, I ran into reality.

I used to make it
My job
To make you feel better.

Your happiness
Was riding on my shoulder
And a bad day
Meant I failed.

But happiness
Can only be found
Within you.

Happiness
Cannot be forced
From the outside in.

Instead,
I will support you
And love you
Through the good and bad
But you have to meet me
Half way
If you want me
To stay.

Miss Holly,
You would have had
Just the most beautiful smile
And the brightest eyes.
I am sure your laugh
Would have lit up my world
And I know our souls would sing
When we saw each other.

But I also know
We would have hard times,
Maybe more hard times,
And I don’t want to bring you into the world
To struggle, beside me.
Maybe we might have had
Good days and weeks, even months,
But I am coming out of
The hardest chapter in my life
And you are not the closure
This chapter needs.

I don’t know
If I will ever have children
Who live on this side of my mind,
But you will always live
Inside my heart.

I cradled you
seconds - moments - hours
before your eyes grew dull
and your life
faded away.

Just the night before,
she had held your hand
and whispered
"it'll all be okay."

She was right.

She has to be right.
Please, be right.

Your first impression
Was exactly what it needed to be,
But it wasn't me.

We learned to love
While writing poems of ninjas
And better days.
The kind of love
That only best friends can have,
That only we
Could share.

In a different world,
Maybe things would have been different,
But I wouldn't change today
For the world.

Before you,
I always assumed
Falling in love felt like skydiving;
Those butterflies,
Nervous flutters,
That only subsided
When your feet touched the ground
And you were still alive.

I never knew
That falling in love
Was really the moment before
You fall asleep;
When you are cuddled up
Beside your favourite person
And you realize
Nothing could feel as peaceful
As you do, right then.

Falling for you
Feels like coming home;
Like security;
Like friendship;
Like falling in love
Is supposed to feel.

You said I wasn’t
bothering you by talking,
but then you stopped talking back.
When will I stop
doubting myself?

I am sure my
need for reassurance
gets tiring.

Are you sure I am not bothering you?
Am I a good person?
Are you sure these thoughts are normal?
Are you afraid of me?
Should I be hospitalized?
Are you sure you’re not scared of me?
I am scared of me.

I am scared for me.
I don’t know what to do.

The loneliest
I ever felt
Was laying beside you
Day in and day out
And not knowing
Who I was.

When I left,
I found strength
In being alone.
I challenged myself
In ways you never could
And embraced who I am,
At last.

Loneliness was never
About being alone
But I sure felt it
When you held me.

Maybe that just means
Moving on
Was just what I needed
To do.

I don't know the last time
I saw your house.

I guess I always thought
I could go back one more time.
It never occurred to me
That one day it would cease to be
My home.
Your home?
Home.

Your kitchen replays
In my head -
Your happy place,
Where you were busy,
Doting and loving,
Decorating the home
In curry smells and
Forgetting to sit,
Forgetting to eat.

Busy has always been
Your coping strength
And I know you busy yourself
In your new kitchen,
Living with family,
But not being needed
The same way he needed you.

I wonder if you will find
peace in solitude
Or comfort in family
Or if you will find yourself so busy
That you don't even have to think
About losing your home.

I try to tell myself
That sometimes good people
Do bad things
But the black and white dictates
That I am a bad person
Trying to escape
Justice.

I want to believe
That we are more nuanced
And more sophisticated
Than binary decisions
But maybe I deserve
To suffer for my actions,
For hurting you.

I want to reach out
And do everything in my power
To right this wrong
And set this straight
But can I be redeemed
After all this?

We must be more
Than the sum of our mistakes,
Or at least I tell that to myself
While I stop the world
And change.

It is a load
Off my shoulders
To sit back
And explore myself
While knowing
You will stand
By my side.

I need room
To stumble,
To fall,
To discover it all
But I need you beside me
To catch me
Every now and again.

I am finally in a place
Where I am free
To discover all I am
And all I can be
And I choose to share that
All with you.

We'll tell you stories,
but you'll never
hear her laugh
or see her strength
or watch her turn frail
or see her lifeless
or know this pain
you'll never know her
at all.

And it floods,
without reason or care,
without rhythm or sense,
without rhyme.

And here I am
left in the downpour,
picking up the pieces
that never should have fell,
that never should have broke,
that never should have been.

Your faults speckle
Across the sky
Illuminating your strengths

Constellations
Exposing
Your soul

I don’t need
Perfection

I need you

In private,
thoughts creep up
and tell me I am
    inadequate
    unequal
    undeserving
they tell me I am
    worthless
    useless
    fake
and I grin,
I bare it
because I
    think
    hope
    wish
they are wrong
but they're so persistent,
so very convincing,
    maybe they're right
if I can't even be alone
with the thoughts in my own head,
how do I convince myself
otherwise?

She left
long before she ended.
Her legacy lives on
and on and on.
She'll never meet you,
but she lived.
She was loved
and she lives on
in all of us.

What if your strength
turns sour,
turns to pain
and you never meet
your final grandchild?
What if you hold on
and hold their hand
and love their soul
before you leave us,
before you leave me.

I don’t know if you realize
Your strength,
Your kindness,
Your love
Or how you changed my life
Before you could talk
And how you still make it better
Every day.

I would not be
Who I am today
If not for watching you grow
And loving every moment of it

Life has hit you
With chaos,
With harsh winds,
With disregard
And you still stand,
Even with tears in your eyes,
To fight again.

I know you are
My baby sister
And I lived into my teens
Before you were even imagined,
But I still gain inspiration
From knowing you
And I am a better person
For having you
In my world.

I know
No matter how hard we try,
Our life will never be perfect.

We’ll probably never be rich,
Never be famous,
Never be known –
We’ll probably never save the world
Although I won’t give up
On that dream.

Despite this knowledge,
this lack of perfection,
I see smiles on our faces
As we grow old,
Hand in hand,
Heart in heart,
In love.

If we always live
In this rented townhouse
With free cable
And your parents’ pets,
I will be happy
Just knowing I go home
To you.

Still water
Seemed so ordinary
Until it wasn't.

It is hard to watch
As you stumble through,
Not knowing
Who you are

I know you need
Space and time
To figure out this world
But I am standing nearby,
To catch you
If you fall

I’m right here
I’ve been there

You are never alone

You'll be a blue eyed beauty
With pale skin
And your father's sense of humor;
Maybe you'll have my smile
Or my intellect,
But you'll have us
On either side of you,
Showing you the world.

The idea of you
Is terrifying and beautiful
All rolled into one
But I believe you will stay
A dream, a vision
Of a possibility
I never really wanted.

I trust you
More than I could ever
Trust myself
And I know
You have my back
In a way I couldn't expect
From anyone else.

I know you
Would catch me
If I fell, or tripped,
Or jumped,
Because you believe
In me
Like no one else
Ever has.

This love
Is more real
Than anything
I have experienced
And it makes me believe
In fairy tales, in love songs.

It makes me believe
In us.

It has been two months
Since you left me,
Since I moved out of our home,
Since I refused to go back,
Even after you begged me to stay,
Two months
Since I told you I loved you,
Or laid in your arms,
Or cried all alone
Or felt you walk away.

Two months
And I started growing stronger
Investing in myself
Instead of someone who only wants me
When it is convenient
or easy
or useful.

Two months
And here I stand
Knowing I am so much better off
And I know life will have
Such better days for me,
Filled with love
Or beauty,
Or myself.

Swirling,
so uncertain,
so cold, alone,
unknown
and yet,
once I knew
of arms so warm,
of life so carefree
where you, and me
we wandered through our days
without a glimpse of pain
and now all I know
is how little I know
about us.

You shattered me into a million pieces
and I couldn't help but pick the scabs.
I didn't even know who I was when I finally left,
but I deadbolted the door and I walked away.

I walk on, with no destination in mind
but there is a treasure map with a glowing X
that says "healing."

When I call out to you,
I know what I really need
is to be validated,
understood, loved.

I now recognize
that no matter what I do,
you are not capable of giving me
what I need.

Tonight I will give myself
the compassion I tried to give to you.
Tonight I will give myself
the love I desire,
the love I deserve.

I have sped through life,
ignoring the speed signs,
ignoring myself.

I never knew
that life could be more
than effort and monotony.

On a new road now,
and I don't know where this road will end
or where I am driving to
but for the first time,
I am enjoying the journey,
enjoying my own ride home.

I don't know where I am headed,
but I know this is exactly
where I am supposed to be.

Tomorrow came and went
without warning
or compromise
and we aged
without knowledge.

Yesterday
was 9 years ago;
nearly a decade behind us
and we run towards the wind,
no inclination of stopping,
no regard
for the realities ahead of us.

Let's age into the infinite
without guilt or remorse,
without a full realization
of how far we've come.