An End to Unending Grief

This poem is a kind of letter to my inner child.

There seems nothing to do
but sit with you
as you grieve an unending grief.

My words, I know, would offer little comfort.
My words would make but a feeble salve
for a wound so grave;
they'd fail to staunch the bleeding.
But I hope the love I pour into you
and your willful, stubborn wound
would dull the sharpness of your pain.

There seems nothing to do
but sit with you
as you grieve an unending grief.

My words, though I try,
cannot make a reliable tourniquet
for this kind of wound.
My words, though clever, would merely
suppress and repress your tears,
and those surely, must be expressed.
But I hope the silence I hold for you
wraps gently 'round your wound.
I hope the hugs I offer you
fill the chill I know you feel
with unceasing warmth.

There seems nothing to do
but sit with you
as you grieve an unending grief.

Please forgive me my occasional impatience.
Please forgive me my desire to turn away.
I can't help but find it hard
to look at you,
to look at me,
with all my scars.
But I am learning. I am growing. I am strengthening.
I am becoming strong enough
and brave enough
to carry you with all your history. 

I shall carry you and your history
with the gentleness,
with the tenderness you never knew.
I shall hold you and your history
close to my beating heart
until you learn what comfort is.
I shall carry you and your history
until you're ready to trust the ground beneath us,
to trust our legs beneath us.

One day, I hope you'll open your tear filled eyes
and see that the dawn has already arrived.
One day I hope you'll see
that there is, indeed, an end to this unending grief.
But I promise to love you,
to embrace you,
to carry you
until that day arrives.