I will give everything for you:
my life,
my mind,
my energy
as you consume what little is left of me.

But does the forest cry as it is torn apart,
bough by brittle bough?
Does the parent mourn the child
it never got,
even as their Ghost so stubbornly still haunts
their Home?

(Don't you hear your Child's steps?
The floorboards bring attention to each spectral step.
Does it bother you that the planks that cover my Corpse
weep louder than you ever did?

And does it bother you that it was the silence
that hurt worse than the splinters?)

Does the child have a right to weep
after selling their soul
to the god their parents worship
(to the very god that abandoned them)?

Does that
"I told you so"
sit nicely on your tongue now?

Like an old dog,
I've waited for your return, lingering by the door.
I've waited for the gentle hand of a childhood
that remains foggy and distant in my mind;
How long has it been again?

7 years is a long time in dog years.