I Never Knew Her

Tue, 11/01/2016 - 01:00 -- Sara-h

But I always knew of the pain in my clan,

Of the burden that sat on the shoulders of my blood.

I learned to walk on thin ice

Never felt she was mine to feel

Because I never met her and

I don’t know

What she was like,

How she smelled and how she smiled.

She wasn’t mine to feel.

But I was only running from myself

When the grief was chasing me down

When it stabbed me in the heart and in the back and I could no longer ignore the blood spilling from my chest.

I was a fool.

But I tried to escape the pain of her

So maybe I was just a fugitive.

 

But is it a crime for what I am revealing?

That even after all this time

I might feel something for her

That maybe I’d feel the loss of the woman she was.

How her feet no longer traveled the earth

How her voice would never pass my ears

How her smile and laugh would never be directed at me

And in secret I often look at the pictures

Analyzing her every feature.

I search for something I might recognize in her

That maybe there is a part of her in me.

I look in desperation

Day after day

But I can’t find what I’m looking for.

Nothing I find will ever fill the void in my heart.

I’ve built houses in the town of the organ that sustains my life

For each person I love

For each to run free and explore,

But her lot remains empty

Her furniture is covered in dust

And her lawn is yellow and dry

Her house is full of images I try to force in,

To place them as if they’d live there forever.

But they would never be who she was.

The pictures are still

And even the photographs of her

Don’t know of me.

Because I never knew her and

She never knew me.

This poem is about: 
Me
My family

Comments

Additional Resources

Get AI Feedback on your poem

Interested in feedback on your poem? Try our AI Feedback tool.
 

 

If You Need Support

If you ever need help or support, we trust CrisisTextline.org for people dealing with depression. Text HOME to 741741