Puddles of violet
stain my eyes,

each thought
deepens the hue,

a tattoo of exhaustion
eternally stained.

She is a single mother
who falters at the rise
of the moon; insomnia
dictates her daily ritual,
a plethora of anxieties
dripping down her cheeks
as beads of worrisome tears.

She's watched her son grow
alongside her own maturation,
teenage dreams mitigated by
the emergence of a new blessing,
one she never expected would come.

She is a warrior in the face of struggle,
her determination overpowering
the very odds stacked against her;
her refusal to submit reflects the reverence
attached to her newfound responsibilities,
a simplistic acknowledgement that she is
more than she would have ever guessed.

She reigns in a world of capitalistic greed,
self-sacrificing her needs for those of the eyes
looking into hers each night; although each
abhorrent remark penetrates her skin,
her ability to withstand the torture elicits
a sense of unconditional love only reserved
for those holding a dim candle in the darkest
of nights -- she is a fighter, a dreamer, a mother.

Even when rays of sunlight
bask down on the currents
rippling through verdant ravines,
a lofty heaviness persists
despite the sanguine summer haze.
Strolls in the sunrise
and midnight ponderings
are no match for the humidity
of the day; clothes cling to skin,
dampening not from heat,
but from the moisture
that falls as mist
in the dead of night.

You are the humidity
of summertime existence;
invisible to the eye, yet
ever-so-present, a constant
reminder of the obscurities
concealed from perception.

I told your mother
that I loved her new hair,
gazed into eyes of cousins
I thought I'd long forgotten,
chuckling at their surprise
to see me once again.
I furrowed my eyebrows
when my parents welcomed
yours with open arms, an
obscure and intrusive thought
battling with long-held affirmations,
juxtaposing with the winds of solace
wafting brazenly in the fog of my mind.  

I'm left in a state of puzzlement,
localizing the loose ends
tucked inside desolate memories,
those remaining from no closure
and awaiting death from exposure
to newfound sights and scenes,
novel experiences with no pretense
or authoritative ownership from you.

I fear the power of elongated naps,
allowing myself the privilege
to memorialize the dreams
conjured from emotions repressed;
it is here where I am most vulnerable,
receptive to the blind-sided attacks
I mistakenly delegated elsewhere,
somewhere I believed would stay hidden,
away from the realities devoid of closure.

It is closure that I most wish I had;
the absence of this finality remains pervasive,
and I am unsure if complete healing
can ever be attained. Perhaps I will forever
be splintered from the wounds of my past,
calloused patches on my skin
reminiscent of names I dream of forgetting.