Alone

I am so surrounded
By the kind of love some people only dream of
But when these emotions sweep down on me
I am alone
So Alone

I hear cars drive past
I hear frogs singing
Insects noisy enough to drive anyone mad
But tonight I'm grateful for any crazy company

What gave you the right?
To give up all your pain?
And leave it at my feet
With all our words unsaid.

I will tell you now
I am so fucking angry
That you took your last breath
Before we finished all our conversations
Before we figured out
We could have made being sisters work.

Every Parent's Fear

Dear Sister
Still sometimes, the pit of my stomach bottoms out
And a wave comes over me
I am not immune
And I hold my children closer
And I pray that they will stay
Much longer on this earth than me
I pray that I will get to see them grow
And I think of you
And what we've all missed
And today I feel sick
For some reason I can't bring any of the good memories to the front
All I can see is you lying there
Still and empty
Every parent's fear

Happy Birthday

Today you would have been 34
And my heart is breaking for my mother
I çan't imagine, getting to the day I birthed my son
And not knowing he was here as well
The very thought of it is unfathomable
And I don't know whether to celebrate
That you are free from all that bound you
Or mourn all the things you are not here to see

History Stampedes on

I watch my son, take his brother's hand
I see him share and smile
He rolls over and cuddles him
Then hits him in the head
And I see a childhood unfolding in front of them
And I think of you and me
And all those shared moments I see with that gentle glow of retrospect,
Filtered into golden like an old photo
And it was all so idealistic
And I think of all those later times
When it all just turned to shit
And sometimes it makes me scared
For me, for my children
And I hold them tight
God, I hold them so tight
I don't want them to ever fight
I don't want to ever lose them
I don't want to lose anyone again
And that's when I realise I miss you.

Milestones

Milestones, swinging by with alarming speed
My baby's milestones
But you are not here
You have not even met him
And it is three years
Four new lives live on
Yet you do not
Isabella, Micah, Xander, Toby
But you are not here
I have not forgotten you
I will never forget you
And I will remember your milestones
Even though, there are so many more you will miss

No Amount

It takes barely anything
And I'm back
Feeling it all
The guilt
The sorrow
The reality of loss
The wondering
The what if

Life has marched on
There are milestones
There are new generations
That will be short of an aunt
There are people you will never meet
Family who will never know you

And no amount of grief
No amount of tears
No amount of words
No amount of contemplation
Can turn this around
Can bring you back
Can undo the past

Your Bracelet

Link by link I'm counting this chain
And it's reminding me of you
Of all the pain and sorrow and fear
You were bound by when you were here

That every day you faced the world
With this chain one more reminder
You were not completely in control
That you still had not been made whole

I see it and I think of you
I picture you as you are now
Not still here, earthbound, chained down like me
But happy and whole, complete and free

2 Years

I tried to sculpt words
To make something meaningful and beautiful
Because flowers are dull and not my style
But there is no meaning here
It is not beautiful
It is just goodbye
It is sad and painful
With no reply
Goodbye

28

Yesterday I was stunned into disbelief
For I have caught you up
I'm 28
You are now always 28
It was never supposed to be this way
You were supposed to be 2 years older
But time has frozen you
So I cried
How can we both be 28?

The Things You Never Shared

Lately I've had tears in my eyes
And I want to shake people
To tell them to wake up
To love the people they have
While they have them

Of course I feel guilty!
There is much to regret
Because the bad things you believed
Were true

I thought perhaps
That you were unable to understand
Too slow
Because our communication
Was stilted

But I found, in retrospect
That you couldn't get the words out
When we spoke
But your writing and your thoughts
Had clarity
And your understanding was present
In the things you never shared

And, God, how I regret that
The things you never shared
How we both could have grown as people
How we could have understood each other
How we could have bonded

Now I can't blame you
It's never fair to blame the dead
So I have to blame me
But how could I have known?
The things you never shared!

30

I dug inside
Trying to feel something
But in the end
I just felt empty
And my emotions
Don't run on a calendar
They come randomly and violently
To me

So I'm sorry today you're not thirty
I'm sorry you never will be
But I'm hollow from sorrow
With nothing to give
And too tired to look over the edge
Into the pit of my grief
To try to find pieces of you

Aching

Can you feel it
The sudden wave that crashes down
The guilt, the sadness
Do we all still live
With that slight shadow there

I felt a small wall
Being erected in my heart
Sometimes words pound on it
I feel my mind freezing up
But I can't take you there
Can't show you that place
It would be too unexpected for you

I don't know how to respond
I must hide me or distress you
It's poor taste to distress
So I tuck it neatly away
Respond - socially acceptably

And it makes me think
How many people are hiding
All these little spaces from me?
When I speak
Are my words pounding
On walled off hearts

Instead of sharing
Sorrow
We go on alone
Sometimes, that makes my chest ache

One Year

A year has flashed by
I still cry in the car
Most days
Because the pain is all I have left
To remember you by
Because the pain I caused you
Is all you'll ever have

There is no second go round
No chance at doing it better
Why couldn't I have been more patient?
Why didn't I understand
What I understand now?

A year has flashed by
And I don't really know
How to acknowledge this
How to take the next step
Away from this
Without leaving you behind

The Last Ride

I see you
In that final position
And I draw back the sheet
To see the whole of you
I want to see exactly what my mother's eyes saw
Exactly the images my father's heart captured
And I feel my heart drop through my shoes

I watch them
As I stand with my family
A stretcher parades past
With a zipped up blue bag
As all of us are broken down to tears
By your final departure from our home
It seems suddenly real, and completely unreal

I miss you
Far to late to show you
That you really were apart of us
That your absence is noticed
I wish I had some opportunity to show you
All the misunderstood and broken things
In our relationship, could have been temporary

Monster

Lately
You have been like a ghost
At night time
You have haunted me
My dreams are filled
With your life and death
And they make me
The monster

Complete

Sometimes I can't stand to see
Survivors
They waltz in the door
Strangers to me
And I'm bitterly
Underwhelmed
At how little they appreciate
Surviving

Still I know
The power to choose
Who lives and dies
Is not mine for a reason
I don't see the bigger picture
All things work together for the good
Sometimes it is someone else's good
Not mine
And I have to accept that

I may not know
Who this was for
Was it for you?
We talk about you
As though you are missing something
But it is us who are missing you
You aren't missing anything
You are complete

Brush Past

I didn't take the time to be patient
I brushed past you
Took for granted
The constantness of life
Which is not something constant
Or something to be taken for granted

I did not say
All the words
That should have been said
But I did say
Far too many
That shouldn't have been said
Sometimes that paralyses me

And too many times
I find myself
Crosslegged
Watching the insides of my eyelids
As the ocean squeezes through my lids
Down cheek and neck

Driving

I drive safer in the rain
Since you died
I feel there is pressure
To stay alive
Any time I take a corner too fast
I see my mother's face
And I slow down
So as not to meet you again
Too soon

An Old Note

I was sifting through some of my computer files.... And I came across something I wrote in response to the one and only time my sister tried to harm herself. Something I never actually showed her, or told her. It's too late now, but it always was. Too late I learnt that she really did regret it. One more thing we didn't really sort out.

Why I am Angry (5/7/2001)

I am angry because you asked me to keep my feelings in a jar
I am angry because what you did was self obsessed
I am angry because you were given sympathy for it
I am angry because you had no right - you are blessed

I am angry because I got in trouble for not caring enough
I am angry because you didn't earn my concern and care
I am angry because I wasn't allowed to ask for support or help
I am angry because there is no sign of it anywhere

I am angry because we all pretend it didn't happen
I am angry because what you said about me was a lie
I am angry because you tried to put blame on me
I am angry because when I'm alone sometimes I cry

I am angry because you apologised to everyone but me
I am angry because you never even considered me
I am angry because I will never be able to say this to you
I am angry because you don't think I have a right to be

Raw

I have not forgotten you
Do not think it is all so easily erased
You have meant more
Tomorrow will be 6 months
And sometimes
I am still
Sitting in my office
The phone
A messenger
I could not shoot
My heart
Dangling from my fingers
As words fell
Through space
And hit my ears
Like burning coals
It is still so fresh
Like a wound
Who's scab
I just can't help picking
Deliberately
For fear of healing
For fear of forgetting
I don't want to forget
Let it run deep
Let it always feel
Raw

My Grief

I swallowed my grief
And it has sat
Undigested within me
Turning my stomach sour
And I wish these words
Would spew forth
From within me
Allowing me the catharsis
I need

But they sit
And they sour
They turn acid in my mouth
I sit and stare at paper
Like dry wretching
Over the toilet bowl
But they never come forth
And free me

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday
But you didn't quite make it
7th July 1978 you came
7th February 2007 you left
Today was the 29th birthday
That you didn't see
We sat, the power gone
Around candles
Just being a family
You leaving
Has made us realise
How fragile time can be
Happy Birthday

Five Small Words

Five small words
Five months later
"Sudden Unexpected Death In Epilepsy"
All the science in the world
To tell us
The obvious

Wasted

Who do these tears fall for?
Is this just selfish indulgence?
I don't know
But I sit
Lost in these thoughts
And time sneaks past me
Wasted
Contemplating
The unchangable

I must take this
Find something constructive
Use it
To change me
Or to build something
Or to touch someone
I don't want
This to be
Wasted

Mince and Sinew

I sat lost in thought as I do
Tears streaming down cheeks
My face has been so dry
Like a desert now for weeks

My fingers entranced by grief
Sing across this keyboard
Believing in words, like they say
"A mighty two edged sword"

It certainly cuts both ways
Up and down my useless heart
Making mince and sinew
Separating out each part

Null and Void

I have pushed things to the edges
But they are still there
Nibbling at me
I dream at night
And in my dreams
I save you
But I awake to find
My nocturnal struggle
Null and void
You are gone

A Playlist For Grief (well mine anyway)

1. Neighbourhood - Vonda Shepard
2. Adia - Sarah McLachlan
3. The Curse Stops Here - The Whitlams
4. Angel - Sarah McLachlan
5. Once in a Lifetime - Wolfsheim
6. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
7. Hurricane - Lisa Loeb
8. The Thing About Grief Is - Clare Bowditch
9. Run to the Water - Live
10. Mary - Sarah McLachlan
11. These Days - Powderfinger
12. Sky is Falling - Lifehouse
13. The River - Missy Higgins
14. Little Wing - The Corrs
15. Mad World - Gary Jules
16. Full of Grace - Sarah McLachlan
17. Eli the Barrow Boy - The Decemberists
18. Drops Me Down - Lisa Loeb
19. Super 8 - Jill Sobule

Second Chances

There are no second chances
There is nothing to repair
There's no point to my tears
And no end to my despair

We used up all our moments
Carelessly tossed them away
Now we're filled with these words
That there is no point to say

It's too late to think of you
It can't do you any good
Too late you got all you wanted
You're finally understood

Your Friend's Baby

The trees overhead
Created an interesting sky
The ocean a parade of blue
To my left
The people made noises
That buzzed in my head like bees
And I was fine
Till I felt your little hand
Grab the back of my shirt
(Till your fingers tore a hole in my heart)
And behind my sunglasses
I felt my eyes leaking
Forth sorrow
That I couldn't explain

Full of Gravity

I feel
So full of gravity today
My heart
Like a stone bird
Made to fly
But too heavy
To move
My throat
Closing over
With unshed tears
Do you get to look back?
To see those left behind?
Or is your heart too full of your creator?
Your mind set to the future?
That I could be that here
In the heavy atmosphere of life
A heart full of my creator
A mind set to the future

The Untruths

I have made a lot of mistakes
And now they are all I think of
I didn't know you
That's the truth of it
That's the shame of it
Everything was untrue
What we thought about each other
All of it untrue
And I can't undo
The untruths
I can only stare at them
And weep

I can't turn back the clock
And only remember
The two little girls
That smile back
From happier days
The two little girls
That sang "Two Little Boys"
Together
For so much more came after that
So much ugliness
And pain
And misunderstanding
Oh God,
That we had just kept
The heart of a child
Where it's as simple
As "I'm sorry"
And as easy
As "I forgive you"

I will regret

There should have been more time
For us to get things right
All the ambiguity
Shouldn't have been left
At my feet

I will regret
The careless way I handled
Our strained relationship
The time I never took
To explore your feelings

How were we to know
A lifetime
Would be so short

Cleaning

We dismantled your life
With deft words
And callous hands
28 years taken apart
In one afternoon
We judged you
Not on what you took with you
But on what you left behind
A serious flaw

For sometimes
What we write
Is what we cannot carry
In our heart
And that which we take with us
To the depths of the earth
Is the most precious of all
The thing we didn't wish to empty
On to paper

Cold

I have tried to put myself in your shoes
That shock of unexpected cold
The dread that must have shook you
When understanding suddenly took hold

I still can hardly feel it's real
And when I lie awake at night
I have to remember her that day
So still in the muted morning light

A New Struggle

I struggled
Wanting to express my grief
Not wanting that other place
To become an obsession
With it
Not wanting people
To be confronted
By my new struggle
Whenever they visited
Where I deposit
My thoughts

So after putting
Only what I thought they could stomach
There
I decided to tease it out
Separate it
Make a dumping ground
For the swirling thoughts
That constantly march
Like a hungry army
Through the back of my mind
Consuming my subconscious

Why

They needed to know the reason why
They took you away just to try
But is there ever a reason
That could really justify

Photographs and anatomy slides
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
All we have left, all that remains
An empty room, full of us

We all search for the silver lining
To an unexpected goodbye
Muttering all the standard lines
Avoid the dirty word: why.

And Then

Suddenly
I was crying
Big hysterical gasping crying
So I went to the shower
Where my tears would be
Surrounded
By thousands of tear drops
And I sat there
Gasping in water and air
And waited
For the wave to pass
Then I held out my hand
And if you hadn't been there
I don't know how
I would ever have stood up

For Her

I'm scared
That they'll judge me
That I'll speak
And they'll tell me
I didn't try hard enough
I didn't love good enough
I didn't have time enough
They'll say I'm a fraud
They'll be angry
For her

11.2.07

An endless stream of good intentions
Have wandered through the door
Muttering the chosen lines
We've heard a dozen times or more

I'm grateful that they thought to come
And I wish that they would leave
Giving me the space and time
That I need just to grieve

Unexpected

Unexpected
In the most expected way
Something we worried about for 19 years
We lived with the fear so long
We grew complacent
It seemed
It would not happen
That perhaps our fear
Was unfounded
And certainly
It should not have happened

There is no comfort
We pretend there is
But just like the comfort
Job's friends offered him
It is a cold, cold comfort
What good is it knowing she is happy
For we are abandoned
And unhappy

Because of February 9

Yesterday
Grief came with an icecream scoop
And hollowed out my heart
Turning my limbs to lead
And my eyes bled
My mind shut down
Only my stomach
Understood
And it churned
And burned
And tied knots
Within me
Trying to understand
The unfathomable