~Silent Victory~
Never seeing you so fragile, yet never seeing you this strong.
The same strength that held you together all through the years came flying apart in one split second.
Now it lingers here at this moment swirling and hanging about us like a shroud.
The recoil that you felt in an instant, so sharp and sudden seems to come loose inside of me slowly as I sit beside you.
I press my head onto your chest and feel it all unraveling inside of me slowly, and if it were not for others outside this door, my voice would rise up out of my throat like some primal scream.
There is nothing I can do now as I hold these strong hands and stroke the scarred fingers that have waged war against wood and steel all of their lives.
I treasured you so much that now I long to lie down beside you on this cold steel table and put myself into arms that will hold me no longer.
How ridiculous that some cheery bedspread covers you.
Something more befitting of my Knight in Shining Armor should be your burial drape.
In all of your sunken shame, in all of your raging glory, in a crushing defeat, yet such a great triumph… showing who was the true master of it all in the end.
I used to put my little girl footsteps into yours in the snow, and follow you on your favorite trails beside wild rivers. But I cannot follow you on this journey, or go where you are going, even though I feel as if I should.
So fragile lying there and yet you have never seemed stronger. There is something of a silent victory here along with a soft cry of defeat.
I am told to wash my hands as I leave, but I don’t want to. The act in and of itself would seem to wash you out of my life and say that you are really gone and lost to me, my Daddy, my Poppy, my friend.
*dedicated to all those that suffer from bipolar illness
