8/11

I was too young to understand the idea of loss
Until I watched a bird die on the quilt of my bed.
I wanted to stay underwater forever
That bathtub blue water my only ceiling and I made sense of the words
Liquid satisfaction
My hideway was my addiction
I wanted to understand why the sky took my mothers fingers
Cuz I never saw her hands set still for a moment I wouldn’t even know if they existed.
I was too young to understand why love hurt
Until I heard the heart beat of a bluegrass guitar
It was something like getting chills in your stomach cuz it became real.
I forgave myself for loving.
I was too young
The grasshopper lawn chair nights would promise me nothing but a reason to take off my shoes
I promised I’d look for where I went wrong.
I was too young to understand how loss and love came hand in hand but without grasped fingers...just the touch of tips
So tell me now
Where did I go wrong
Between loosing teeth and growing pains
And somewhere in the middle of forgiveness and goodbyes
I forgot to open my eyes
I learned hello from watching his heart stop..that night upon my quilt.
I learned goodbye from the first kiss
My clarity, so clouded in the lens of a child, came to in the underwater tub of a bathtime addict
The pruned toes creeping down the hall
In prayer that one will never become two
Stay together for the children
Stay together for sake of forgiveness
I was too young to learn the reasons of loss but I somewhere in the clouded underwater I found a reason to love.