To You Who Once Cared

3 letters from a child to their parents

Proudest Mistake

         Was I your proudest moment? After two disappointments, I imagine the bar was at its lowest.
I cannot see your reaction anymore than the one permanently etched on paper with glossy ink.
         Did you picture the next 18 years in the same gloss I tried to keep you in?
Did your dreams and images of me turn to ash, just as my idea of you died in me?
         Do I still make your heart race, and your voice raise in cheers as I remain at peace in stagnancy?
Do I still make you proud as I did when I would make my body sick with stress, trying to fulfill your dreams?
         Or do you see all your efforts wasted as I smile in peace and alive. Am I finally taking my place as your proudest mistake?
Just as you took your place as mine?

Same Cloth

         I'm cut from the same cloth as you once were, as well as those who came before or followed.
I carry the same tattered and shredded edges that you and the others carry, we are from the same cloth, one is simply newer and younger.
         So why do we look exactly the same and the same, with the same battered ways- we are cut from the same red cloth we are torn in the same centers.
         We are cut from the same cloth that left you in tatters, so why did you think it was good to cut me in the same way?
What made you think it was a good idea to cut me in the same damn way, why cut me from the same damn cloth that still haunts you?
         Why cut me from the same tattered cloth that leaves us feeling red and torn down the center that leaves us hanging by a single thread.
Why cut me from the same cloth that leaves us feeling damned.

Over Done

         You over do it, did you know that?
We make a habit of breaking your heart, at least I learned when to stop.
         He still hasn’t, and for that I am sorry.
I know the types I surround myself with, I know what I attract.
         Moths to a flame they flock.
I bring in the broken, the depressed, desperately unloved, those undeserving to our sanctuary.
         He does the same, I think we all know we attract what we truly are.
I stopped bringing them in when I realized how much their lack of presence would hurt you.
         I didn’t realize how often I would bring more ghosts to haunt your holy ground.
I stopped letting the shadows follow into your light when I realized none was left for me.
         I love you, but you stopped protecting yourself from the dark.
So I stopped inviting the fledglings, because you over did it.
         I knew my limits, I could tolerate the broken. But somewhere along the way, you lost yours.
When did my bleeding heart become yours?
         When did I start cautarizing my scars, to start treating yours?
When did you start over doing it, that I was the one to stop it.
         When did it shift from his fault to my resolve?

Gone Prophecy

         Were you being honest when you said you wouldn’t be mad? Or was it a brief moment of comfort because you knew there was no other way for this to go?
         Was the only happy ending possible with me leaving? While you all recovered, was my disappearance the only way for you to get better?
Was distance the only cure to our destruction, was this always going to be our only answer?
         How could I mean so little to you? Or was it because I meant so much to you that my leaving was truly your only cure.
Was this always going to be our prophecy?