Maybe it started when I used to beg you to play barbies with me and you'd
Sit down for five minutes and then make up an excuse to leave.
Or maybe it started shortly after your mother died and I used to come into your room
And brush your hair back with my tiny three-year old hand and say,
"Mommy, I dusted your bedside table for you." Hoping I could maybe
Do something nice to cancel out the bad in order to get you
To stop crying and pay attention to me.  
Or perhaps it started when I used to sit at the bottom of the stairs in the dark
And listen to both of you fight for hours about nothing, wondering
If other peoples parents used words as knives.
Or perhaps it started the night of your birthday, right after your brother died
When your friends had to carry you inside the house and you were so drunk
You could hardly make out a mumble,
I had to check on you a thousand times in the night to make sure you were
Still breathing.
Or perhaps it was the time you told me about your childhood abuse,
The trauma that had never left you,
The attempted overdoses  you  made sound like you wished hadn't failed.

Or maybe there was nothing that started it, maybe
I had always had it.
Whatever word you want to fill the space of "IT" with,
Is fine by me.
Because I sure as hell can't put a finger on it.

But it's there.
It has been there for as long as I can remember.

*The presence of absence.