I was young.
Paralyzed by the way the phone rung like church bells.
Picking it up to say goodbye was frightening.
My beautiful world casted in lightening that night.
World War Two looked easy the way he fought his last fight.
Walking the hospital floors was almost impossible.
Each step was lifting lead shoes.
There's too much of my heart to lose.
I never knew that would be goodbye.
The words from your last breath to reach my ears,
I still hold them dear.
“I love you” made a million tears.
You're gone.
I know you never meant to leave me, but I feel neglected.
“He's in a better place.” Ran through my mind and off my lips like a broken record.
The song selected as carefully as he picked out words from his vocal chords.
He always knew just what to say.
I tried convincing myself it was going to be okay.
But I'm no liar.
I was never okay after they had cut off his life support wires.
Heaven was quick to take him in.
It hadn't occurred to me until his wake.
I promised that day I would not shed any tears, I was as strong as him.
We were too alike, that night I sobbed my hardest.
He left behind his tools and sawdust, to me it looked like stardust.
For days my stomach wouldn't settle.
I could never be comfortable on my own.
Surrounded by people in black, hugging me so tight.
It wasn't enough to stop the poison in my veins of feeling alone.
A day in hell was brighter than this funeral night.
I was too young.
The fist time I had seen my grandmother cry.
Right before my own two eyes.
Her heart was with him, I seen both die that week.
The adults thought I was too young to see the truth.
They were too old to know I had already left my youth.
I held a deep breath hoping not to break as I reach his casket,
As I looked at his face one last time for good I collapsed.
The breath released all at once, hysterically crying.
In my entire life, nobody had ever seen me so upset.
Years pass more years and not a day goes by.
Today I feel the same as the first.
My memories are cursed.
Everyone assumes my past was good.
They won't understand that dark childhood.
Bubblegum and candy was nothing like my tainted blood.
I collapsed at his casket.
I never got back back on my feet.
The sadness hardened in my heart.
To this day I still wake with tears like concrete.
Thoughts of him scatter like broken glass in a million parts.
There's no repair, only pain.
The tears are the last thing I have left from him so I'll proudly wear them.
Reliving my most frightening nightmares in order to stay sane.
At 82 he got cancer in the left lung.
We were all too young.