My chest is imploding.
This is rubbish, really rubbish. It has no form, no structure, no poetic merit. But I had to write it, and it just feels right to log it somehow. I may return to it and fix it, but right now it's raw and real.
My best friend (who we live with) just found out her dad died today. He was 50. She hadn't seen him for over two years - they didn't get on.
I'm exhausted. She's even more so. I can hear her sobbing upstair in bed with her boyfriend L. I just had to get this out of me.
The last time I stroked you hair like this
We were sixteen.
Your sobbing was for a boy
Who didn't know your worth.
If I'd known this then -
If I could have told you
That in eleven years
Your father would die -
Would it ease your crying now?
Remember - in someone else's loft
Above a spiral staircase.
We hadn't meant to stay
But I stroked your hair all night.
"I wondered why it felt greasy"
You said when you woke.
Tonight you cried slicks of tears,
You cried until spent
But still they came.
Wrenched from you like a storm
Which rages on past sundown.
I gripped your hands, calmed
The pulse racing at you temple.
Fingertips trying to mend tears miles wide.
But I was glad you screamed then,
Glad your cries stormed loudly.
Knew you'd only sleep
When exhaustion came.
Tonight will feel like it's the worst,
That in the dark despair stalks,
Creeping through your memories,
Whispering lies of uncaring,
Taking for granted, of not realizing
What there was to loose.
Smothering words to your restless mind
Of love twisted into some malformed gall.
Guilt will try to make you see it,
But guilt refracts truth,
Does not reflect it.
He knew. He knows. Time will pass.
Though you will resent it's passing.
The night thinks it's the worst,
But the worst will come with morning -
Dawn's shadows slip through curtains,
Shorten sleep until waking
It seems a dream.
And crashes when
The weight of day stabs home.
The worst is when you
Remember it's real.
My best friend (who we live with) just found out her dad died today. He was 50. She hadn't seen him for over two years - they didn't get on.
I'm exhausted. She's even more so. I can hear her sobbing upstair in bed with her boyfriend L. I just had to get this out of me.
The last time I stroked you hair like this
We were sixteen.
Your sobbing was for a boy
Who didn't know your worth.
If I'd known this then -
If I could have told you
That in eleven years
Your father would die -
Would it ease your crying now?
Remember - in someone else's loft
Above a spiral staircase.
We hadn't meant to stay
But I stroked your hair all night.
"I wondered why it felt greasy"
You said when you woke.
Tonight you cried slicks of tears,
You cried until spent
But still they came.
Wrenched from you like a storm
Which rages on past sundown.
I gripped your hands, calmed
The pulse racing at you temple.
Fingertips trying to mend tears miles wide.
But I was glad you screamed then,
Glad your cries stormed loudly.
Knew you'd only sleep
When exhaustion came.
Tonight will feel like it's the worst,
That in the dark despair stalks,
Creeping through your memories,
Whispering lies of uncaring,
Taking for granted, of not realizing
What there was to loose.
Smothering words to your restless mind
Of love twisted into some malformed gall.
Guilt will try to make you see it,
But guilt refracts truth,
Does not reflect it.
He knew. He knows. Time will pass.
Though you will resent it's passing.
The night thinks it's the worst,
But the worst will come with morning -
Dawn's shadows slip through curtains,
Shorten sleep until waking
It seems a dream.
And crashes when
The weight of day stabs home.
The worst is when you
Remember it's real.