In Lieu of Flowers

Blood Bond

I used to write when I hurt.

Not to declutter my mind, but to scratch deeper into the wounds that had recently stopped bleeding.
                                 It felt like a reminder
that i was still alive.

I befriended pain because I was always told to keep my enemies close. But pain is a mean girl.

She lies to you until you mistake the bad days for a gift you deserve.
She comforts you by pulling you down,
keeping you there.
Stroking your hair
                                  while you choke on the ground
             reassuring you that you don't need to be afraid to fall anymore.
That it doesn't get any deeper than this.
But it does                                                Oh it does
Deep to a point where pain leaves you—emptiness is out of her jurisdiction.

Then you start missing her,
because she was still better than the black hole of numbness,

where you can't remember the feeling of warm water covering your eyeballs until you have to blink to see clearly,

you can't remember the strain in your cheeks after laughing so hard that you peed a little,

you forget the feeling of your jaw clenching when the stewardess tells you that water on this flight isn't complimentary.

Now
          you're left with this faint conviction that you used to be human
                                         An old life where miraculously
                         the days and night didn't blend together.

At this point I stopped.

I stopped attempting to attack the state of my sadness.
To strip myself away from the full-time solitude.

I started sinking in the boiling waters of a few quaaludes,

drowning on the white wash of downers and uppers,

and while stuck in between the vines of a k-hole holding my body still—my mind wandered    

                                    to her:
My little sister

Her voice, a lighthouse in the ocean behind my eyes.

I thought about the smell of her forehead when I kissed her goodnight, I thought about the secret messages we'd pass through our eyes when mom would be throwing a fit for the dishes not being done, I thought about her nails digging in my arms when she begged me    not to leave her, and I remembered the promise I made:

To always be there.

In my persisting darkness,
her sunshine always stays,
illuminating the path to get back home.

In my unending night sky,
she hung sun,
moon,
and stars.
Through the bloodline that flows from my heart to hers I fight the shadows puppeteering my days. I can hear her telling me to take a leap of faith—"Let the universe catch you and guide the way."

Through her eyes I see now.

That I might not have a say in how I was made,
but im beginning to understand who i was made to be.

And we both might be unsure about who we are,
but I can always be certain of what we'll be:

Always together.

Because with her,
I'm just a few drops of happy tears away,
from seeing the glass half full