April 17 - Love You Forever

Prompt was to use a story that you read a child

Love You Forever
was a book I used 
to read
to my baby’s baby
this child that 
I was raising
because I’d broken
my own into pieces
‘tho I loved her
and never meant to
it was just 
another verse
another ugly chapter
in the eternal story
hurt peple
hurt people
broke her so bad
it’s been years 
since last we
tried to talk
to each other 
in brittle conversations 
that ran off the rails
in all the pain and despair
that I had fed her with
every bite of Gerber’s
every bottle of milk
and every single second
that I was absent
self-medicating my way
through all of the bars
booze, drugs and
comforting arms that
I could find to bandage
my own bloody wounds
until all that was left of us
were these broken hearts

I often hate that
I finally got better
because she didn't
and the guilt gnaws
holes the size of Texas
through my soul
each day
it makes me weep
for her for us 
for the we 
that never was
for the hopes of 
the we of someday
clinging to my life raft  
the thought that
for as long as 
we both shall breathe
there is hope…

I love her forever

I always will