Overwintering

You are my sunshine... my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are grey...

It was the childhood I dreamed of but never received.

It was the bubbles of happy, so deeply grieved.

I yearn for the summer, where I remember beaches

and fire and singing so loud in the car it felt like love

reverberating in my chest. I ache for golden hair and

sky blue eyes so wide with innocence and belief that

it would get better. I wish that I could have been

that summer child and when I remember the beautiful

little golden girl, I feel like I let her down. That when

she was lost, she would be found, and her saviour

would come on a pretty white horse but instead

we watched the slow sinking tides of remorse.

Her eyes turned to ice and her hair to brown,

her voice became a nervous, wavering sound.

I remember sunflowers at a funeral and crying

at how alive they were, it was a flower my mother

always preferred. But they died in the hall, forgotten

and lonely and I cannot find anything but the cold now.

Blue suits you, they say. It is your colour.

Please don’t take my sunshine away…