Sit down next to me
I'll tell you a story
About watching someone fall apart before your eyes
Watching the skin advance closer to the bone
The personality wither away
A cancer journey

Sit down next to me
I'll sing you a song
About the pain that is ever present and the shaking in her hands
About the confusion in her deep brown eyes as she is lost a little more to me, to herself, each day

Sit down next to me
I'll draw you a picture
About the last few days with her where she barely opened her eyes
Where she was hardly present with the substances that raced in her blood
Where she was panicked, confused and her mind was going, going, gone
Where I had to look hard to find traces of the woman I'd known

Sit down with me and I'll paint it on canvas
The desperation
The helplessness
Feeling unexplainable in it's entity
Fear and grief mingled into an indistinguishable snarled being
A living presence in that hospital room
Of the prayers, prayers, prayers
For it to be over,
For her peace and
For mine

Sit down next to me
I'll show you the pictures
Of her youth where she swam, climbed trees and skinned knees and grinned with mischief
of her first child, second child, the brief moments of smiles hugs and love, the third and the fourth and first steps and cuddles
The mystery, questions without answers and untold stories mingled with the stories with too many versions to piece together the puzzle
The life of a woman who we called our mother.

She wanted to be the girl to make something
Beautiful
Out of that snarled blackness that she had always existed in
To make a light to guide
Into a future of freedom, normal
She hoped they might open their eyes, see the light,
Follow
But there they stayed in their comfort of nothingness, a hopeless future and those after to live in the same
That was okay
That girl will still shine

From head to toes
We are imperfect
Saying the things that are unimportant
Talk about the weather
Rather than say, I couldn't live without you
Too scared to say what we might regret
But if we don't
Will we not feel the same
Those actions we don't put into action?
Those words we don't allow our tongue to form, our lips to pronounce
Will they not haunt us
When it comes to the end?
Lay your head on her chest
Hear her heart
Get close
Give your heart what it needs
Trust, to save yourself
Tell her you love her& give the evidence of it
Give with all your heart
Chance the hurt
To eliminate the regrets, 'what-ifs& I wishes'
Live from the heart

We don't live life
Life lives us
Deterioration, breaks, cracks
Lives us out until we can live no more
Takes all our energy, saps all our strength, courage as it demands
Takes, ruthlessly, unforgiving
It wears us down, like sandpaper does the rough wood that will one day be the dining table, worn, dented, gouged, used,
Old, wrinkled, soon to expire
A new generation in every birth,
Born to be lived, worn, used, deteriorated
And so it goes.

Have you ever met Immy?
She's a beautiful kid
Blonde hair
Big blues
Stare up saying 'you'll love me'
Trust in her eyes, love in her heart
She needs protection, devotion, unconditional love
Immy sits and waits, she wonders what she's done wrong
Mummy doesn't  get up when she's hungry, when her ear hurts and she can't sleep
When she needs a cuddle because she's cold and sad
Mummy doesn't brush her hair and do it up pretty
Mummy doesn't put her in pink shirts and frilly skirts
Mummy doesn't shield her when he hurts her every night.
Mummy had no sign of love in her eyes when she yells ugly words
Mummy has no love in her eyes when she's throwing things around the yard telling Immy to get the **** out and don't come back kid
Mummy isn't a mummy
So who will be?

Have you met Immy?
She just graduated high school
She worked harder than any kid her age would
Fought, kicked, escaped
She lived round those places til she got on her feet, dinner on the table, school everyday, vacuum your room
Responsible for herself she made it
She's a miracle
She's strength, courage
She made it out of the cycle
She overcame the inevitable, expected
Escaped the void
The hopelessness
She made it

I observe your flaws
Thought I wanted perfect after all the dysfunction
But perfect is ugliness I now know
Embrace the scars, weaknesses and out of the norms
I love to see them, see you as human
Brought back down to earth
But you're still in the clouds
Still bright shining
Saviour
Guidance
Goodness
Still perfect but not all the way through
& that's just the way I love you.

You've put all this weight on my shoulders
Responsibility
That you couldn't hold
You didn't want
You've been nothing when I needed everything
It's okay
My shoulders can hold the world
Such strength there is in them now
My heart can take the rejection, absence, abandon and can survive, it's walled now, protected from such
My spirit can take the absolute desolation that comes with your presence and come back to form into smiles and strength
I don't mean you've left me unmarked, unscarred
But you have given me absolute strength and that need for you has gone
You've given me the ability to be alone, self sufficient, rely on no one, need not another soul
And be okay with it
For that, I thank you
But you really are selfish *******
*******.