Red bits flew into the air as my heart let go of the pieces that were so numerous
that to count them would be like trying to count each and every gray hair on your head.

The pressure that it had held grew too heavy to carry.

Each piece carried a part of me that I had collected with love and each piece shaped me
and each piece kept me from freezing over like you did and your father did and his father probably did.

You didn't fill much but you were buried somewhere underneath all of the others, in the smallest part that I clung onto, desperately hoping that somewhere inside of your cold body there was a place of warmth that held a piece of me, too.

I kept hoping and wanting even if it was tiny like my little sister's toes, your second daughter's toes, when she came into this world and fit into the palm of your hands.

I thought that maybe one day your eyes would show it and your mouth would express the love that I wished a piece of your insides contained and I held onto this idea for a long time.

I carried the wish from when I missed the ball too many times to run and my hands shakily filled in "b" when it was supposed to be "c" and your angry words tumbled out of your mouth and made themselves comfortable in my bones.

I brought it with me until your lips refused to speak the words that I wanted to hear.

All I wanted to hear was that you loved me and when the sound of those three words didn't escape your mouth and never reached my ears and my mind and my heart and my soul, I let go.

I let go of this desire, this need, as I filled my blanket cocoon when I was supposed to be making you proud- you hate that, when I lay there; useless

I let go of it as my mind refused to think of your face and as my heart turned a little bit colder when your small piece that remained to warm me left just like everyone always does;
even when they say they won't, even when they say they are certain that they love me. They just don't.

It always happens.

I let go of you just like you let go of all your pieces and I should have known that this hoping and this wishing and this dreaming would be for nothing,
because the love that I was looking for, the love that I had been searching for my entire childhood had been long gone.

And I'm so sorry, my lungs are screaming out apologies and regrets along with words of bitterness because I can't help but be angry for all of these disappointments that hit me day after day hour after hour minute after minute.

I'm trying not to let them heard; it's not like you've had any empathy or shared a hint of understanding.
Did they ever even exist? Do you even care?