daughter

i keep putting it off
getting these thoughts down on paper
maybe because i don’t know what to say
or maybe because i’m too afraid
to hear myself say it
(and the guilt piles up on top of me
like centuries of sand on an ocean floor)

right now grief has its claws in me
its long, deranged nails dig deep into my skin
and i grit my teeth from the pain
but i do not ask him to let me go
(trauma is so comfortable
when it is what you’ve come to know)

what if i actually just come right out and say it —
i wanted an outcome
i now know that i will never have

there will never be a little girl beside me

and the weight of living with that the rest of my life
snaps my sternum in half
and threatens to rupture a heart
that i still have to beg every day to beat

it is like losing her all over again
every morning as i open my eyes
and wave goodbye to the dream