Watching her slip from me

This woman I no longer know

A faded vessel of substance and grace

Whose first lessons bore within me

A resistance to pain

A stoic and relentless desire to be loved

I crave from her the words she won’t say

Words she doesn’t know anymore

Pain eats at her heart but no longer holds me captive

I have made the choice, to not always find the darkness

In its encapsulating draw

It pulls at me, in the darkness of night

Calling me to come and wallow in its discomfort

An ache for the pain of normalcy

The familiarity of anxiety and worry

I fight it

I fight her, not with words or actions but with belief

Not all is lost, hope can abound

Even if she is lost to me – those first lessons hold fast

Against the coming of the night