one year
eight months
four days
or
eighty-seven weeks
and six days
which all amounts to
six hundred and fifteen days
since you left.

fourteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty hours
you have been on your own

eight hundred eighty-five thousand and six hundred minutes
you have been without your strange, silly
redheaded daughter

fifty-three million, one hundred and thirty-six thousand seconds
that you have robbed your family
of happiness
millions of breaths
that didn't belong to you

i can't figure out
if i should still be so unhappy
after all that time
you'd think a person would get better
do people with divorced parents
stay unhappy
forever?

it makes me
afraid of humanity
if my own mother
can leave me
who else will?

but most of all
if i ever am lucky enough
to have a family
i know that i will never
ever
ever
leave
i will always
try to work it out
it's always
worth it.
i am worth it
i deserve to be happy
at least once in a while

i need to stop counting the days
but i can't.