To mum

I have been looking for you.
I went to all our usual spots.
The hospital steps for example.
Or in your old bed when for a few minutes we would lie together.
I’d sit there and wait to feel you sit there too.
But I felt nothing and felt too sentimental.
Why are you not there?
I even looked in places I thought you might like.
At the bottom right corner of the swimming pool.

It seems you only turn up when I’m doing something I don’t want to.
You stand by my side and give me a hug and a cheeky smile and you say ah they don’t matter anyway.

Maybe it’s nothing but maybe it’s something.
When the whole bus is full but a seat next to me. Or when a fox lingers.
Why not believe that’s you?

You’re not here anymore but you never were anyway.
The shell of you has gone. But that was weighing you down anyway.

I hope to join you soon but I just have a few more things to finish up here. I won’t be long.

I’d give so much to sit with you again.
In the early morning (I know you don’t like the afternoon)

I wouldn’t feel guilty I have nothing to say.
To my own mother words don’t seem to touch the sides.
Now silence is all that’s possible, I don’t have to hold that guilt. What’s there to say?
Words can ruin it sometimes.

We would just sit breathing and I could collect my thoughts before I face it all again.

And I wish I didn’t care so much about the pointless things that fill my head.

Thinking and gnawing and thinking and gnawing.

Does everyone get stuck in their loops?

Ways to make sense of this infinite space.

You had it right all along, mum.