My bodyguards

Grief, despair, and guilt...

They fill me up and surround me,

Like hulking bodyguards,

They keep others at bay.

"Always so serious,"

"Everything's depressing,"

"Just can't take a joke,"

"I want to run away."

Well, this is how I am,

Take it or leave it,

And if you leave, just know

I know how to be alone...

Alone through great sorrow,

Alone in solitary vigil,

Alone in darkest despair

When not a single light shone.

I just wish I could sleep,

But when I lay in bed,

Images of pain and death

Play and repeat in my brain.

If someone would listen

And put an arm of comfort

Around my weighted shoulders,

Perhaps that would ease the pain.

Violets

I brought you two pots of violets

To brighten up your room.

One was laden with pure white flowers,

But the other had yet to bloom.

I put them on the window sill,

Where they caught the winter light.

You smiled and said, "That's good,"

Pleased by the homey sight.

We considered the barren plant:

What color would the violets be?

"I don't know," I told you softly,

"I guess we'll just wait and see."

Simple words, yet carefully chosen,

I wanted us to share expectation,

To look to a future, to hold out hope,

To banish death from consideration.

Now you're gone, the white blooms have withered,

But now pink violets have burst from the other.

Their beauty brings me bittersweet pleasure,

If only you could see them, too, Mother.