Dear Tom

Dear Tom

If I had the courage to speak from the heart
Ladybirds of redness would sing from
It.
I imagined my pain was of your making
But it was only the making of life.
Now I'm alive like a ladybug.
Still small but making my way bravely 
Forward and backward and forward again.

Now more smoothly and flying at times.

Dear Tom 
If I could speak from my heart
I'd say
Nails have been stuck in my chest
After you left.
I cared about each one of your steps
I could not witness you make.
It was the kind of loving I wanted for myself.

Dear Tom.
Your silence is empty like a heart that's
Been shut -
But I give myself to it and I'm full of it 
Now.
I call things for what they are 
Too. Do you hear ?
Cause shying away from the heart 
Keeps it shut.

Dear Tom
I imagined you could be my home but 
This was my bad.
Like I could have owned your being and
Fill it with mine.
That's not loving, that's owning.
Colonising. I retract.

Dear Tom,
I honour your spirit. 
May it be freer and freer
With each day like a ladybug
That flies it's own
Own
Own way.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2025

Poem

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