Imperfection

How can you use words

to describe something

that lies so much deeper

than the soul we bare to the world?

How can you use words

to tell the story

of losing something

you will never hold or feel again?

Already I have these gaps

swelling in my brain

consuming what might have been

and leaving voids in their wake.

Already it is hard

to pinpoint exactly when

the pain started leaking out,

numbness to fill its place.

So how can I explain

what it was like

to speak with my sister,

realizing secrets I'd buried unknown?

So how can I explain

that the same moment

I realized I was no longer a child

was the same moment I forgot?

The change was gradual,

not gentle, but lithe in its approach

like a hunting cat

springing suddenly with claws unsheathed.

The change was gradual,

only when the words tumbled out

traitors in their desertion

did I know they had been there for so long.

The moment I realized

was the moment I lost

was the moment I won

was the moment I knew my parents.

The moment I realized

was the moment I remembered

was the moment I saw

all the scars, pain, fear, mistakes they made

It's not easy

swallowing the ache

closing my eyes

knowing things will be different.

It's not easy

seeing that the colors

that I once clung so tightly to

had been strokes of desperation.

My family split apart

my parents split apart

our hearts split apart

but even then I was still a kid.

My family split apart

time passed, vicious water

swift and gentle at the same time

carving canyons out of chalk.

I know, now, the truth.

Humans are humans

even if they are parents

even if they are kids.

I know, now, the truth.

Humans make mistakes

humans can't fix everything

and sometimes growth is just that:

The softest merging of what was and what is.