5. 9. 17. 18. 20.

I’m 5 years old and wearing my favorite pink rain boots.

I’m running too fast on our family farm.

I trip and fall and scrape both my knees.

My mother sternly says “DON’T cry over these.”

I’m 9 years old and our mother falls ill.

It’s nothing fatal, but to her it could kill.

Her anger builds over the years,

And by the time I’m twelve I’m no longer wanted here.

She says no one loves me or wants me around.

I start to believe her words down to the core,

And on a daily occurrence my eyes stay cast towards the floor.

I’m 17 years old and I think I’m in love.

This boy is a real “gem” and I think we “fit like a glove.

When I was 18 I was a senior in high school.

I entered the year completely… suicidal.

I tried to ignore the dark shadow that consumed me

But there’s only so much pain that one soul can take.

One afternoon, a few months in

I left the school parking lot and decided to give in.

I drove myself to a quiet place and sat in my car.

I chugged the cheap vodka not sitting too far.

I couldn’t see straight or talk or think.

The pill bottle stayed closed, and I continued to become weak.

My parents were angry and hurt and embarrassed.

How could their youngest daughter be so aberrant?

I barely survived the year on my own.

I no longer really had a place that felt like home.

When I was 20 I moved out of that house.

I had to walk on eggshells, and I had become a ghost.

For years to follow, I was nothing more than a host

To something dark and sad and surprisingly lost.

Over time I regained consciousness into my life.

I would not accept my fate, not let it bury its knife.

I reclaimed what had been taken by the shadows that stalked me.

I ran and I read. I worked and I laughed.

And somehow, I found love again at last.

A tall, blue-eyed figure that would become my husband.

Little did we know that love would soon again become my past.

We spent a few years fighting and bickering,

But then the time came, our love no longer thickening.

My pen scratched across the paper as we signed our goodbyes.

There I was again saying hello to that dark shadow.

But they say time heals all and although it’s painful,

If you’re patient enough, you’ll no longer feel shameful.

And there you were, my soon to be favorite person.

Standing in the sun and I soon felt certain.

Your laugh and love and favorite color purple.

The way you hold me and whisper you love me.

Through struggle and pain and things that worsen,

You somehow find a way to lift that dark curtain.

You’re the one that I love, my best friend, that I hold here

Because nothing in this world is anymore clear.