TIGHTER GRIP
I say goodbye to you and watch
you walk away.
I watch me walk away from you walking away.
Me letting go
fistfuls of shirt
released.
Baby me screamed out
reaching
wishing
incoherent.
I watch
thinking for sure I will collapse right there.
I was let go.
Again.
My mind knows that you cannot stay
but my mind cannot communicate properly to my body.
All I can feel are your arms around me
and then you leaving.
It plays on repeat.
I cannot breathe.
Baby me held herself.
Told me I have me.
Told me you’d be back.
Told me the first person that left never came back.
Told me you’d be different.
I cry
big tears
calling you back in the only way I know how.
You hugged me and I lost my words.
You let go and I felt like I lost myself.
But perhaps that was baby me feeling.
Baby me was put down and lost her roots
her names
herself.
Now I desperately clutch at what remains.
Hands so full of fabric
that they are hesitant to grasp anyone else.
Two weeks ago, someone asked me how it feels
to know I was abandoned as a baby.
I lied and said I didn’t know.
Today I told you that I felt like I was going to die
after you went to get on your plane.
You said
“I’m not putting you down.
I’m holding you
you’re holding yourself too
and our grip is getting tighter.”
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