Sister
A friend—
not a good one, but a close one;
one that I couldn’t let go
If I could see you now, I don’t know what I would say…
there were always things I didn’t know
but I loved you most.
Tuesday nights, sometimes Thursday, 7:42 PM
The nights I didn’t have to wait you out
were the ones that kept me in.
97 minutes
“I love you most”
I wanted so much to believe it
or just to hear it
even if I knew the next day I wouldn’t be able to see it.
-
Tuesday nights, and even Thursdays, 10:42 PM
outside my window, I sometimes wondered if that star was only in my head
but it was real
and it was constant
even when I was alone
each time you left me
when you decided there should be things I couldn’t know.
-
Three years of silence
Shut it down
you don’t deserve to be around
so make it hurt
it can’t get worse
the blood will prove if you’re still a person
or just a monster
Come back around
God, put me down
don’t make me pull this from the ground
I’m already nothing
underfed, my form is shrunken on my bed
I’ll pour my nothing into you
so maybe you can be the things I always said.
-
Not my sister
not my soulmate
not my friend, but I was yours
the closest one you ever had
the only one that always endured
everything that you twisted,
every time that you lied
every time you turned outside everything that was inside.
Whenever you would break down,
or your car, or whichever,
I was always surprised the way I held it together
when I was already so broken myself.
The bits and pieces I had left,
I always gave you everyday
Begged you to take them,
“Please, hold on”
you can have mine, please, just stay.
You threw them back and said you dropped them,
they just slipped out of your hands
left in the ground
what’s left of me
I don’t know why I ever let you come back around.
Except, I do.
I know too well
the way I’ll care until I die
Standing like a broken puzzle as the missing pieces lie
somewhere I’m not
Air and pain inside the spaces in between
a hollow wind that blows throughout
this jagged chamber we’ve both come to view as me.
I know I’ll never get them back,
those parts of me I lost to you
I know they weren’t all by your hand,
but now those ones I never knew
are much more heavy in their absence
Amplified by what you stole
the peace of mind I never had,
but maybe could if I had ever let you go.
I don’t know what you think of me,
or if you think of me at all
If you pretend I don’t exist,
as if you weren’t the one that called those years ago
Two stories traded, two pains crossed that Friday night
yours clung to me
as if it knew that it would have a place to land
for the rest of time
I was always alone,
and then I wasn’t
but with you I was still in the cold
Throughout the sleepless nights
I realize
there were so many things you didn’t want to know.
You don’t deserve the power trauma lets you have
The way I’ll starve on your behalf
The way I’d bleed to take it back
The prison made of glass.
You shrink the space I occupy
On every mouth I see a lie
On every face I see the pain I tried to leave behind
I walked away and took your shadow
it attached itself to me
I hope that mine still walks behind you
so that you see it every time you try to leave.
You painted me a number once
and it became my definition
I think we both deserve to know
that you are long past 70x7.
-
The portrait of trust I started young,
without believing it was true,
with you as the muse
and then the fire
that lit the fuse
and burned the canvas to the ground.
I like to think you wouldn’t recognize the person I’ve become
The one incased inside the structure that was built when I was young…
I shattered it, no thanks to you,
but one thing is still the same since we met:
Sometimes, I can’t decide
whether I wish I never met you
or if I wish I never left.
-
Maybe someday, I’ll fill a book
with things you thought I didn’t know
I knew your eyes
and all your words
that echoed lies
to where I stood
the borderline
that kept us both against the edge
I was the one you always claimed,
sister,
the one you weren’t to me
And so I let them settle in my soul,
stories,
the ones my mind would never have believed.
And even now, I still can’t doubt
that I would do the same again
But I know the next time I save your life
would be the last.
I won’t survive.
So, don’t give me the chance.
Copyright © Rachel Bradshaw | Year Posted 2022
|