Dear sickness,
I couldn't carry her up the stairs.
Her weight was unbearable and she lay limp in my arms.
Dear chemo,
She really did lose all of her hair.
We would go out in public and people would stare.
She wore a wig but still, I knew.
Dear limbs so skinny,
I watched her walk down the hallway using her walker.
My father clutching her arm, guiding.
It broke me in two, to see the jutting bones.
There was nothing left of her.
Dear insanity,
I remember the night she called to say goodbye.
She thought she wasn't going to last another day,
After all... the nurses were out to get her,
and she didn't understand why she had to take so many pills.
Dear rotting tumor,
You had been growing for over a year in her brain.
Taking up space where there should have been healthy cells growing.
You took away so much, the little things,
the big things, the important things...
The heart and soul of things.
Dear growing pains,
I realized what it meant to age quickly,
To grow up sooner than you are ready.
I did it, and I'm still here.
My mother's still here,
although some parts of her
will never be the same.

I'm looking for myself
in all of the wrong places.
He tells me that all I need to do
is to breathe, and release
and I'm trying,

but I become choked up,
in all that I could be.

more
more
more
this is the only word
i can seem to tell you,
it falls out of my mouth
and bounces across the floor
lays at your feet,
bare and stagnant,
you stare at me like you have
no idea who i am

i need more love*,
and you are going to do
nothing at all
about it

I stood in the middle of your chaos,
guitar melodies and melted candle wax,
cigarette butts from another drunken night
and that **** futon that always made
me awaken, toss and turn
but I never reached for you
and you never reached for me
I knew right away,
this should tell me something
about the way we both love
Not enough,
or too much
and neither is ever
right

i told you i could write something for you,
and you didn't believe me,
so when i showed you my fancy script,
the dotted i's and crossed t's,
you looked at me like i was crazy
to have named a poem after you,
and well,
maybe,
i am

You think it won't happen, but it does
The sinking feeling, the gutless entry and
You are left to fend for promises that you never
Intended to keep in the first place
I am coldhearted and alone and deserve nothing more
Then to rot here, or there, somewhere
Where your eyes won't follow my every move
And when I will finally fall to my knees
And cry and beg, and bleed and bleed until sore
I will still not understand the price for my sins
As he taunts and teases, pulls and prods
At my long ago innocence, I will falter
To be the girl He intended me to be
Too late and too little devotion to matters of the
Heart, the soul, the in between space
And I am wasted and shedding the wrong skin
Parts that should have been kept floating off into space

I dreamt about you last night, and it hurts
When I look back and ask myself,
Why I ever took your graciousness for granted
Placed it on the ground and stomped hard
Over and over and
I ruined you
I know I did, and now I live with
The reality of that
But I don’t know if that was me,
I think that was me...
And I lost her, when I lost you
I will never get you back in the grasp of my hands
I have memories, and they are all that suffice
I can say that I was happy,
I was so happy and I could see marriage
Being a possibility
Rather than something I ran from
But I realize I have always been flighty and flirty
And the disadvantage is all mine
Because you will find someone who
Gives you something,
All of her, all parts
While I will still be stuck here,
Trying to figure out ways
To gain something back that is long gone