Tarnished

Their grief was a roar in amongst those who silently mourned.

Did that make their hurt more valid? Is the void within them more significant than those who did not lament aloud? Those who had experienced his birth.

When did my belly begin to clench when their hurt was shoved down my throat? When did I start to choke on the mere mention of their name, my body ailed by distress and the urge to ignore unpleasant realities?

Time passed, but the perceived lies still hang between us like a silent veil, waiting to be barged aside by them and their noisy pain; until the moment they decide to hold out a branch of peace.

For none, outside their group, would darken their door, for fear of rejection, afflicted, resentful, resented, invoking a shift between us which may be forever irreparable.

Should we implore and plead, beg for the wholeness which once was? Or is well best left alone? All forever suspended in a constant battle of thought that will not be heard?

Time has only caused me to build upon the barrier. My barricade has been created so high the door within has a lock that can no longer turn. The love I felt will always remain, and there is no victory because of it.

I try to banish them, but they consistently linger in my thoughts, part of me, but separate, loved and yet unloved, forgiven, yet not forgiven.

Time brings engagement, a child born but never told, and the day we might conceivably meet again.

My feelings threw me into the darkness, anxiety pulling me back to a time I did not wish to remember—those who were close to me as a child now strangers.

I watch others' pain as they struggle to make sense of every cutting word, as I do. They stand like bereft troopers together. But I know the slightest utterance of a name would effortlessly blow them down with its cruel and savage wind like an exploded grenade of anguish.

Truth is grievous and troubled.

Grief roars, but whatever is left is tarnished.

We stand as one, fractured.