Dream Family

Family:

A group of two or more persons related by birth, marriage, or adoption who live, [or have lived], together; all such related persons are considered as members of one family.

-Definition according to Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA)

 

We talk about it, but it only counts if we do it – live it,

Family. 

Give up, then no Family, just people we used to know

sharing a name. 

 

I have nightmares about them.  I scream at them, “why did you

leave?”                

They never have an answer;     

just look at me nonchalant as if to say,

We are not even going to answer that.

 

you are of no consequence to us…

 

I scream.  I scream

louder! 

Fuss about my bed; wake up tangled in my

pain like the sheets wrapped around my

body.

 

Few people know what Family means.                

I thought it was bound in blood, time     Life

…stronger than other bonds. like the bonds of

war – life long war. 

 

Wrong. 

Family is only as strong as the bonds

both souls make.  Everyone knows that.             Now I do too. 

 

A weak hand

lets go every time.  My hand

stayed out, groping;

to unite us together,

but they

didn’t. 

 

Only when it was easy did we stay together. 

Tough times came; they

let go                  my hand grew tired,

stretched out reaching

I took my hand back, my arm smarting from the

tension. 

 

Has anyone been here at all? ever?

Apparitions…drifted in

and evaporated

away. 

 

So I stopped

screaming.  There was no one to hear. 

They turned from me; 

took their love and their lives and

left,

ending our friendships, severing our bond, and

I didn’t even have a say.

 

Romantic ideas are noxious, trivial. 

The two that showed me Family are

dead. 

And they weren’t the people I built them up to be –

but that doesn’t mean they weren’t

real. 

 

They weren’t liars. 

They just didn’t live up to the ideal.  Neither do I, but

I strive for it –

like they did.     

I’m better at it than they were – but there is no

family of

one.