I cried for your life

Grieving not only

For what I lost

But for all that you

Had taken from you

You deserved a fairer chance

To be, to live

I wanted those things for you

 

I wrote you a letter, once

When I was twelve, perhaps

It was less than a year

After your death

It may have been the day

Before cynicism reared

It's ugly head

 

Taking hold of my thoughts

Forcing me to see

An adult world

Through a child's eyes.

 

I didn't send the letter

In that moment of enlightenment

I accepted, almost knowingly

That heaven didn't exist.

 

My heart aches

Every day

It has ached for twenty years

Yet it still beats

So perhaps I am

The lucky one

Motherless, but alive.