1925-2011





chelo





This is a poem I wrote for my grandma when she passed.

It contains a lot of inspiration from Shane Koyczan’s* poems, (*my favourite poet in the world.)

It may sound a lot like him, but it comes from my heart and thats all that matters.

It has no title but I think it speaks for itself. 

Every day grandma would come into my room and say “Buenos Dias nina Linda” A sure line to get me out of bed, in other words Rise and shine.
 

So I rose and shone



And showed her every flower I found, every lost and hungry duck we fed, every night the shadows in my closet would fill me with dread.
 She would say its okay, and hold me till my eyes closed and my breathing slowed, so she would know I was asleep.



Her smile so wide and love so deep, you’d think I was describing an ocean, with every pool of gold and stream of blue combined into the greatest human being saturated with of love.



Who watered me daily, growing me like a flower in pot
, I grew so fast you needed to find a bigger pot, but by then you had grown me so well, my roots had already found the earths soil, and I was gone.


I am writing this



For a family that stayed way past visiting hours,


Because for us that term doesn’t apply


Not when your grandma is sick, and there is nothing more they can do.



If I could hook up my heart to your ears and let my tears be your morphine drip. I would



Because maybe it’s easier to let you slip away than it is to say goodbye.



So I hold my breath and watch

while you just lay there, feeling my head bent towards you like a plea, as the darkness ushered in the night-time like a warning, that time is passing
.

And you right along with it. Bit by bit, 

every minute.



And all I can do is tell you 
"stay, say anything, as long as you stay.” 

My words met by silence, while the drip drop looms, and your time is coming. 

Tonight
I've got a pocket full of blues and two silver coins

 to rub together



Which means I'm wealthy enough that I can finally afford to pay attention.
I'm listening.


And my broken heart is where I keep the scar-tissue 
that I used to dry my eyes when a tear tries to make a break for it. 
I've built my eyelids into an Alcatraz, 


where every prisoner has a trial date scheduled for 

yesterday. 


And they played dominoes until time comes full circle, 
like a sun rise, and today tries to set them free 
because they'll be locked up here until I let them go, until I can tell you 

“Youre gone and I know it, but I still miss you.” 

And I can try and let the memories go, try and slip off the pain.


 The word “try” is key, because I can try all I want, But I can’t ever let you free


From who I am, and who I’ll try and grow up to be


Because I’ll say now what I could not say then,

 You have made me, held me, loved me, bathed me, and shown me all I needed to know, to understand that life is a poem


My poem to write


Keeping, change in the tip of my pen.


And it seeps out every now and then 
and writes a mountain


Because headstones just aren’t 

big enough



But for the first time in my life , nothing I can say
 can write this away



And I’m the first to admit,
I sure wish there was a Never Land,
Where time never takes us by the hand


And forces us to grow old

Because maybe then time would freeze,


And I could hold on to you


Just a little breeze
Speaks 10 more years into your being.



Truth is
 time was on fast forward that night


Like a damaged record skipping and missing the best parts of your song


while 
I was looking for a pause button in the wrong decade



I hold your hand, knowing it won’t ever be the same


Your eyes opened, and spoke words more true than your voice ever could


And said 

“let me go,


because I’m already gone”



I am writing this, for a woman who never frowned,

 not even when she stopped breathing.



I know now,



How to say


goodbye