So, so you think you can tell.
Heaven from hell.

Flower crowns and hanging art, fill the walls of the room.
Bright colors surround her, like a tie dyed kaleidoscope.
Pictures of friends and families sit on a bookshelf,
While trophies from past poetry contests line in.

Blue skies from pain.

Her long hair bounces, to a familiar Pink Floyd tune.
Rosemary scents fill the room, matches burning the coated bamboo.
As the smoke leaves behind a trail,
Her eyes scan over the wood floor.

Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?

Once new and polished, now splintered from the years.
Nails sticking out, causing many accidental cuts.
She runs her rough hands over the broken boards,
Her chewed nails exposed, chipped polish barely covering them.

Do you think you can tell?

Memories flood in as she lifts the floorboard, revealing a rose pendant,
The worn, brassy one that her mother passed down to her.
Closing her hands over it, she feels a sudden breeze.
Soon, two hands wrap around hers.

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?

Not ones to be seen, but more as clarity,
Proving that her mother is there.  
Reminders of laughs and staying up all night,
Singing along to whatever old 70s song was filling the air.

Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?

Dancing like “pros”, even though,
They both new that they weren’t.
But in their minds,
They were whatever they wanted to be.

And did you exchange

A relationship many would fight for, not easily found.
An almost perfect life.
Mother and daughter.
Connection so strong, separated by a driver and glass shards.

A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

Soft, loving hands replaced with cold, hard ones.
As she clasped hers over the picture frame.
A frame revealing a man,
Not her father, but close enough.

How I wish, how I wish you were here.

A story with no happy ending, instead long nights of endless yelling.
Smoke trails flood in with the last puff of his cigarette.
Alcohol camouflages his minty breath as he comes in closer.
The tears that streamed down her face, and a red sting on her cheek.

We're just two lost souls, swimming in a fishbowl
Year after year, running over the same old ground.

His eyes, so brown and dark, they turned black.
A side of him no one knows, unleashed,
With the help of the poison,
Burning his throat.

And how we found, the same old fears.

She can feel tears starting to fall,
Shaking her head to make the memories disappear.
But no matter how hard she tried,
They were there to stay.

Wish you were here.