A little like poetry

Crack of dawn, like the crack in a mirror

They told me once,
that when the world cracked open
we would see the souls
of the weakest.
The souls of those who couldn't survive this world,
or were not given a chance to.
"You can hear them," she said.
The crying of the unborn,
the calling of the abandoned,
the screaming of the ones too brave to live.
"Can't you?" she asked.
Because it's sewn into the lining of the sky,
hidden in its pockets
and holding on to rain.
"They're scared," I tell her, "of letting go."

We're crying the same sounds, you see.
Screaming and laughing, just like they are.
Maybe I can't hear them,
but I can hear us.
Clear as the glass pieces we put to our mouths.

And we don't need to wait
for the world to crack open to see.
They're in our mirrors before we break them,
and even after.

"They know," I tell her.
That they might be the weakest of souls,
But they're still stronger than us.

(c) xoxoCharis Vera @ 12:30:00 AM 0 comments

Red ribbon on gravel

He sits at the back, staring off into space.
Oblivious to the moving world, uncaring and disinterested.
They move in circles and he wanders on the outside, expressing no interest whatsoever in stepping in, to join hands.

She is no more, and they crowd in around me.
Their questions tripping over themselves, tumbling over each other's heads.
Some of them are reporters, some of them are counselors and some of them are desperate to know.

He comes right up to me, his question balanced precariously on the edge of his lips.
"Did you love her?" He presents this to me, wrapped in a ribbon of a history I do not know.
"I'm her father. Of course I did."
He nods, taking my answer, folding it into himself and the many layers you are not meant to peel away.

He wanders to the corners that they have emptied out to come to me. Fits himself into the familiarity of that emptiness and disappears again, all but physically.
It should not matter, but it does.

She,
she who was not real and is now gone,
at least had a father who loved her.

(c) xoxoCharis Vera @ 2:40:00 AM 0 comments