When You Died
On the day you suffocated, the sky was grey.
It was early November, just before my wedding anniversary,
but that wasn’t the day you truly died.
Years before you’d withered away and forgot my name.
I was born your sister’s daughter, soon we became sisters,
but one day I became a stranger.
I was a nurse before I became absent.
The last day I saw you, you asked me to leave
as soon as I stepped into the room.
I was selfish for guarding my heart back then,
I should have pretended to make you smile,
I should have fought harder to hold onto you.
As the snow that had once covered the mountainside and melted
seeped from the water table,
I, too, will melt away from my grief and isolation.
I, too, will be coerced from this state of sorrow towards renewal,
with or without my desire for it.
