Reaching for a Ghost

You wonder how to reach into someone. What it would take to shake them. What would it? She's been sick for more than half her life, and the other half was threaded with loss and lies. I can't blame her, I just wonder if I'll get my goodbye this time. Will I? I imagine the phone call and how I'll hold it all. I'm the oldest, and it will fall to me to keep him together. He's young, and death, to him, is not a familiar song sung.
I want to go back to that warmth by the fire. My Little Ponies sprinkled across the carpet. Voices muffled by my own imagination. Fighting sleep only to pretend to be. I peaked through slitted eyelids as she sneaked closer. She picked me up and cradled me into her tiny frame. Up the stairs to bed. Now nothing's the same. A past full of blood and lead and look where it has led. A life left untuned. A mother leaving her daughter far too soon.