my dad laughs as he swears I learned whole sonnets in the way my mother spoke before I ever let a single word drip from off my tongue

knew all about her kind of crazy before I ever knew exactly what that would mean for us

the days she wouldn’t leave her bed
except to crawl desperately to cool tile

hold her own hair back and wonder again when it would all be worth it

the last time I saw her alive she wasn’t a quarter of the person she used to be

and I’d sit up for days wondering again what I had to do to make it worth it

watching her rot away inside of her own skin

my sister thinks I’m heartless
that I can throw away all of the pieces parts she left behind

but I cannot bare to choke on these words any longer

I hate the way I sound so much like her
staring at a ghost every time I look in the mirror

I am haunted by all the things I did not do for her

all the ways I let her down and left her to die alone

and I sit here for hours and wonder again when the pain will be worth it