Do you see ever see yourself?
Do you see your hollow cheeks and clenched fists?
Do you see your bird-like bones, the pallid tones of your skin?
Do you see your burned palms, your hard, bare feet?
You don’t realize it- but I see it.

The stories your eyes are telling me.
Sore and aching, your dry eyes leaking tears of-
Invisibility.
Invisible to everyone-
Or Almost Everyone.

We’ve been together on the road of hell together.
Bruised together.
Left in the darkness together.
Dammed to the ends of the earth together.
Cursed together.

We said our prayers with tears in our eyes.
Still our hearts screamed in silence-
Overwhelmed by the shadows of yesterday –
The day before yesterday-
And the day before that.

I hold your hand in silence.
I force your veiled lids open.
I try to make you see.
I try to make you live again.

But you won’t.
You close your eyes, determined to remain oblivious to life.
You try to avoid the pain.

You believe that if you can hold out long enough,
Maybe you can find something better in life.
Something that is actually worth living for.
Something that is more than just existing.

I beg you to come back to me.
Talk to me.
Let your anger out.
Believe that I am can help you.

Let me become a mirror to your pain,
A pool to hold all the days of your life-
And those to come.
Live a little more so I can tell the story-
Of the child who used to call me a friend.

Live a little more so that I can become,
More than a ghost of the days that never were.