Dear Mum

Another bottle, another tear
Clinking and anger
Rings in a new year
I fear, when will it end,
When did it begin?
Was it the pain, the anger,
or the demons within
That carved a soul into a million strips
And left a hollowed mess
I confess, I barely recall when it was whole
The one I hoped to be, the soul that carried me
Now I carry this burden that is not mine
How to let it go and find
A peace within the chaos, a calm within the storm
A way to out the fire that keeps her warm
But burns through her existence
The storm that she has become, 
the demons that have won
It’s not my fight to fight
And I can never win, or make it right
But nevertheless, I feel the blows
Each occasion is like another knock
That’s how it goes
I pick up the pieces of our fractured link
I try to repair the wisp of a tie we still retain
And she snaps it in the blink
Of an eye, that’s now filling with tears
The same old story for so many years
A broken record, a busted hope
The fire is reaching the end of the rope
That ties us together and keeps me from fleeing
This damaged disaster she continues being
I beg for it to burn through the guilt and the fear
So I can be free of this burden I shouldn’t bear
I try to turn and walk away
But the sadness creeps into the cracks in the anger
And I stay
I halt in my tracks and remember a time
Where her smile lit a room and her happiness was mine
Where her arms were a safe space and she carried my pain
Now I carry hers
And I fear, it can never be the same again
Yet that foolish thread of hope keeps me here
So I break my own heart year after year
To try to salvage even a portion of hers
It never works, 
Yet here I am
And here I fear I’ll stay
Until the demons go away
And return the person I sought
Or more likely, she loses the fight, that she’s never really fought.