Radio news bulletin in the car
the last item read in those mellifluous tones
is about a seven-year-old boy
struck and killed by a car
in a poor suburb of Wellington.

The protocol around the legal and privacy issues
means it’s “no name, no pack drill”,
but he was someone,
someone’s son, grandson
perhaps even great-grandson.
He had probably had siblings,
definitely friends and playmates.

Somewhere in a house with
inadequate winter heating,
where the household income is
constantly under siege
and life never rises above a struggle,
there is a mother and a father
who bear this greatest grief.

 Andrew M. Bell

I waited on many mothers with their daughters today.
my last table had a prada shopping bag with them.
they stayed an hour after my shift ended.
did they think
I didn't have a mother
waiting at home?
...
of course, my mother wasnt at home.
she, too,
waited on many mothers with their daughters today.
i wonder if she realizes,
in another life,
we would be at the table
with a prada shopping bag
too.
give me a few years, mom.
we'll get there.

He reads me like a book
Every page he writes
I’m astonished every time
I hide in a maze
Confused of my time
Confused of details I have shown
And what I’ve shown not
Those of hidden disguise
He finds
And so I question what he knows
I treat it as fools gold
Because knowing me is not that easy
But yet still today
It’s easy to him…

I am broken, I am worn
Broken from another’s scorn.

Rebuilt with random other parts,
Held together with one heart.

I run on lost time
Air tastes divine
Treating the world
like it’s some ****** up shrine,
Leaving my stuffing all over the floor
Once strangers soon strangers cause they’re wanting more.

Reminding you how it could always be worse
How all bad things will run their course

But a marathon leaves you panting heaving
broken,
breathless.
Stuffed eyes, sewed shut mouth.

I am broken, I will be reborn
Mending from a mother’s scorn
Rebuilt with once strangers other parts
Held together by their hearts.

You always have my heart in your heart
Don’t be scared if we sometimes have to be apart
I’m always with you in your eyes and your smile
In your feet and your toes
In your ears
In your soul
I’ve loved you even before I knew you
When you were just forming inside
I’ll love you forever ‘til I’m no longer
I’ll love you beyond space and time
You have my heart with you always
You are never alone
Smile when you think of me, my love
I will always be your home

We been together five long years with a beautiful, gorgeous daughter,
She brings the child in both of us she our little joker,
There are never any regrets in the choices I made to be with you through all the arguments through all the obstacles and struggles from good time to bad,
To every emotion from joy and happiness even from anger and sad.

This is the hardest decision in my life that I ever had to make,
Splitting up isn’t going to be easy for the both of us to leave you and our daughter when the time come to be set apart,
I know the pain it going to cause me the hurt in my chest even though there going to be times my heart going to break,
But I just want to let you know that no matter what happens that I will always have a deep place of you in my heart.

You are so strong your capable of so many things you’ve broke obstacles and never realizes you have won them you have a big mind and so may dreams,
Through the mountain you must climb don’t give up no matter how hard it might seem,
You can do all things just keep your mind focus keep pushing through and the most important is that you got to believe,
I don’t want this to be the end of us even though we may be apart I still want to see your goal and see you live your dreams I still want to be there to see you achieve.

Just wanted to let you know for me leaving has to do with spiritual reasons you did nothing wrong and have no fault in this,
When this time comes for me being away, I have faith that our relationship can get stronger but if we don’t ever get back together, I understand and I hope that we can grow another relationship and become best friends and I hope when you are ready that you find love again and find the one,
You and especially our daughter has been the best thing that has ever happen to me you girls help me grow so much the man and father I’ve try to be everyday there no words that can describe how much you girls change my life you are beyond my bliss,
There something I do want to say that important and I’m going to real with you through the past five years I’ve been with you I have dealt with being accuse and blame of thing I had no fault in. The feeling of shame of treating you unfairly or encouragement I’ve try to give you but somehow you take it as a negative point of view, or the exhausting overwhelming feeling of your anxiety, fear, low self -esteem, depression and so on the things you fight within. I’m no angle myself but all the things you have put me through have taught me this is to be patient and that love is a choice, all these years that I’ve stayed is because I love you that much. Let’s pat ourselves on the back that it’s been five long great years with a twist that with all the struggles we overcame a lot together I feel like we’ve won.

P.S God love you unconditionally meaning when no one cares or when no one there when there no support or in life when you believe you don’t have a purpose or just don’t have a clue, ‘’God said before I formed you in your mother womb, I knew you.’’ (Jerimiah 1:5)
When you feel like there’s weight on your shoulder and life is hitting you hard and everything seems to be crashing down, with your head spinning round and round and feeling broken,
God holding your hand and he right there beside you if you give him a chance Jesus is the living water that can flow within you like the waves of a crystal blue ocean,
I will admit that you and I have both experience suffering and that we both have felt like we’ve been in a tunnel in complete dark,
But God is the light at the end of the tunnel and to see it and reach for it you simply must open your heart.

No matter what your decision you make in your life I’m truly happy for you of the things you’ve overcame and the person and mother you’ve become and much more I am, and God is proud,
So, a toast to the long journey we had together and possibly much more in the future to come but until then goodbye for now.

By: Jacob Cuadro

There was a certain comfort in the time I spent
Sitting against a wall outside in the cold
They don’t tell you what its like to freeze to death
But here’s what wishing you would is like

The trees sway with another chilling breeze
There’s a little stinging pain in my toes
Its been about 20 minutes out here
My feet are the only things cold
I'm thinking
Way too much about how the frost feels
My hands become red
a little icy itch not quite numbing my fingers

Another 20 minutes go by and I can feel the cold travel
I have no intention of leaving
I don’t want to
Maybe i’ll stay all night

An hour in my feet are cold on the outsides
My ankle is freezing
I adjust my earbud and look up to the sky
My breath can be seen in the air
I think about my mother finding my body
Bitten blue with winter

2 hours in and my feet are starting to ache
Its an interesting feeling
Almost like I’ve broken a bone but can’t quite feel it
I don’t want to be here anymore
Not outside, id love to stay in the icy air all night
But here, in front of my so called home
Filled with my so-called family
I’d like to be staying somewhere else
Somewhere where they aren’t
Somewhere where the people who care about me
Are all far far away
And if I die, they know in a few days
Not right away
If I’m sick they’ll send a gift card
And call so many times I’ll have to turn off the phone

So maybe I’ll just sit here
And let nature have its way with me
Because I'm not ready to go back in
And live in a “family”

I do not mind carrying you,
you carry the conversation while I breathe
and your breath warms my ear

I do not mind the angle at which I hold you
as I bathe you and listen to you sing
and your arms soap my cheeks

I do not mind the slow fall onto the bed
your light keeps us aware of the night
and your dreams bruise until you forget

I do not mind,
but I wait for a dawn alone.