Within my life, love has always gone away to die.

Whether it be between my Grandparents on my fathers side

or

the collapse of a middle class family in denial.

My mother, the saint

My father, the preoccupied.

I spent my whole life just watching them try.

I watched my extended family start to run dry

between every visitation & cancer

&

every divorce without answers.

The simplest thing I could do was sit by

& learn from the mistakes / the taking without giving.

The heartaches for no sake.

But still to come in my life is the difference I hope for.

The truth that I wish upon a ring to embody something more.

It could represent all that i’ve seen to forget.

& bring two stories together -

Neither in shame nor regret.