You can feel it
I know you can

(You must be perfect)

It's in the pinching shoes
Tight little shorts
Heavy rings and jewelry

(You must be perfect)

It's in the noise
In the bright lights,
Warm bodies

(You must be perfect)

It's in the heat of hair
On your neck,
In tired made-up eyes

(You must be perfect)

It's in the air we breathe
Every moment we're outside

I can feel it
I know you can too

Is it okay that I still love you?
Even knowing what you did?
I knew nothing at the time
Hell, I was just a kid

I sometimes got the feeling
That maybe you were mean
But I'd push it from my mind
Like some forgotten dream

You used to tell me stories
Before I'd go to sleep
You shared with me imagination
But kept your secrets hidden deep

As I grew into a woman
You gave me great advice
You taught me to be honest
For to lie you pay a price

You told me I was beautiful
And you loved to hear me sing
I never felt you judge me
I could tell you any thing

By then my sister and brother
Had left to escape your fury
You made us think they alone were guilty
A swift exile by judge and jury

I believed they were to blame
Yes, I believed your lies
Even though Dad's heart was broken
Even when I heard his cries

As the years progressed
You shared a little of your tale
About your ******* of a father
And how he put you all through hell

Your last years were full of pain
You suffered much before your death
You begged them for forgiveness
Then you took your final breath

But the damage was too great
And we would not recover
We remained estranged
From our sister and our brother

Since your death I've learned the truth
What you did, and what was done to you
My hearts breaks for the abuse you gave
And the hell that you went through

Now my heart is so confused
I don't know how to feel
Is it okay to love you?
Is the woman I knew even real?

I can't explain it any better
And I don't know what to do
I wish some one would just tell me
Is it okay to love you?

It was a graveyard and overcast sky
and I sat with book and accordian in hand,
hearing the world with its screams
swallow up around me.
The people whom I had loved and lost,
Papa with his silver eyes
Mama her sharp tongue and tough love
Rudy whose hair the colour of lemons
and questioned why, the living and dead,
worlds apart, yet both did not have a choice.
I stood and screamed so that everything shook
the burning rubble and ash and dust
willing my words to bring it all back
but it did not come, and my breath rose in gasps.
Death had looked me in the eye and said,
“It’s not time yet.”
I would shut my eyes to the world
only decades later.
I will understand that there was hate and pain
there was sadness
but even more so, there was love and joy.
I will know that the people I loved had reason
to kiss goodbye
whether it was their own hurt
or saw it as a necessity,
but they were never truly gone from me
always somewhere nearby,
in the thick and thin
frail and worn
of times.
I would learn
to forgive Death that day.
I will understand that
and I will be hurt,
but I will be okay.

~

Not all deaths are sad.
Some, meant to ease their own pain,
Are called freedom.
While some,
Meant to ease the pain of others,
Are called love.

© BT