I wasn’t there for The Final Fight.

Frankly,
it sounded like the same old *******,
Old words, new spit
Old hurts that won’t quit.

I wasn’t there.

But I’ve attended that fight,
And it’s too shiny to die,
Glittering with layers of lies
Roughly the shape and size of a perfect slingshot stone
And worn hot and smooth from years of carving into bone.

It isn’t fair, the choir sings,
As one triumphant final chord rings clear and long,
So ends the song.
The war lost
The battle won.
It’s not as fun to take the bow when the audience is gone.

You know,
Trauma is tricky.
It evolves quickly,
a parasite
That grows when you feed it
And knows that you need it.

You shaped yourself around that shard of pain
And it lanced through your childhood and ate the remains
There’s no knowing where you end and it begins.
You are the same.

Its’s strange to mourn someone who isn’t dead
Your aliveness rattles around in my head.
I picture you alone in your garden,
Which thrives the way only a loved thing can.
It repays you in lilies, tomatoes, sunflowers,
a hundred different birds in springtime
Who return again each season
Hoping you will feed them.