She looked at me like I was a crime scene,
so fragile, yet so horrific that she didn't know what to say.
Instead she cried,
she cried simply because her daughter was gone.
She cried because her daughter felt so alone, and took her life.
She cried because her daughter couldn't find a way out.
She cried because she didn't even notice the pain that her daughter hid, and she cried because her daughter hid the pain so well, like she'd had plenty of practice.
She remembered the hot days when her daughter would come out of her room wearing jeans and a sweater despite the blazing heat.
The days when her smile seemed a little off, too forced.
She never had a clue that her little girl was falling apart right in front of her; slipping into oblivion.

She looked at her daughter lying on a metal table in a morgue, naked and forever exposed.
She grabbed her hand and began to cry.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed.
Her skin was so cold and so pale.
She thought to herself, "if only I was there."
She tried to tell herself it was okay, that it wasn't her fault, but she knew it wasn't okay and it wouldn't really be okay ever again; and that if she would have just asked maybe she wouldn't be standing in a morgue, mourning the loss of her only daughter.
She found herself asking so many 'what if's'
but what if's were inevitable, and it was too late.