The Mother of Gaps

Your distance bruises my faith
in such petty, yet profound ways, 
more than a bully’s cut down ever could.
The gap between you and I
is one I feel I must always bend to bridge,
even as I want to scream, “Notice me!”
Yet every tug at the sleeve is ignored,
until tired and tired and oh so tired,
I cease to pull.

Is it any wonder I disappeared?
Is it surprising I shrank and withered
like a neglected houseplant—
greenery turned sallow and fragile?
This is the grief of the gaps:
the hollowness where expectation—
no, not even: where hope and childish wishes
plunge into the yawning, bottomless ravine
of cold, unconcerned Reality.

Yet you seem surprised, as if my wails
come causeless from some other planet,
because everything is fine:
three square meals, a decent roof,
even clothes on my back.
How could I be anything less than grateful?
Am I ungrateful in my pain?

I would trade security in the physical
for your attention and care in a heartbeat,
but wishes do not rewrite history,
and some things, it seems, are in the bone.

I will love you, but let you go from me,
like a storm-tossed anchor slowly cut free
I do not know if I am the woman you wished:
always chasing your shadow,
clutching at crumbs as they fall,
afraid to stand on my own and be seen,
because what if I am not enough?

I will love you, but this is my farewell:
not to you, but the you I hoped you might be,
and the me who hoped for such things.
She is unmade by her grief,
while I learn to grow in the shattered heart
she left behind.