Birthday Velleity

Two years and 8 months of sorrow, her eighth birthday's here, Memories of laughter, now a labyrinth of grief's dark passage. I failed her, leaving her to face the abyss alone, The silence is a heavy mantle, crushing my heart neath the stone. I wander through the darkness, searching for a way to repair, But grief's shadows loom, a pain that's hard to share. In every negated celebration, I hear the whispers of what could have been, A life that was slowly devoured, leaving only sorrow and darkness within.