I keep writing about those who are gone.
Keep purging guilt in ink.
Slowly suffocating in lungs that fill
like water balloons we threw at summer camp.
That day we got lost in the woods
plucking gooseberries straight from the bush.
Sour bitter droplets of candy to hoard.
Found within an hour sticky hands
thorn pricked fingers bleeding guiltily.
That one afternoon I tasted freedom
and knew it wasn't for me.
I should be writing about the one still here.
She didn't yell when I called her crying
homesick barely twenty miles from town.
Years later, leaving felt like escape to a new world.
She didn't discourage me from running.
Didn't mock me when I realized loneliness
is a shadow you can't peel away.
She didn't say I told you so
when anxiety and rage hunted me down.
She just waited patiently.
Forgave me all the missing years
and held me once again.
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