SUDDENLY, AT HOME

You sometimes feel you’re the only one

Who has these sorts of memories,

But, over the years you’ll come to hear

More tales of try-outs and “successes”.

A brother, a son, a sister-in-law.

A town’s worth of children.

Each one persuading someone new

Of a choice it offers them.

But not a choice you’d make yourself

Or one you can understand.

You just lost a friend forever

When their turmoil a door slammed.

There are so many of them happening,

Endless tragedies every day.

Yet it’s something that daren’t be talked of

When strangers are nearby.

A family secret spoken only of

In regretful, hushful tones.

Hidden behind a shame-filled phrase

Like “suddenly, at home.”

And every time you hear of it

All unhappily repeated,

Those familiar, buried thoughts will come

From the darkness, resurrected.

Reminding you, returning you,

To a dark time in your life,

Where bitterness still lingers

For insight you couldn’t have.

It’s not your fault, how could it be?

But it’s still yourself you blamed

For things you didn’t see,

Or words you should have found.

Those magic words to save them,

So many times attempted,

But those well-meant words could never pass

A troubled soul’s defences.

The memory and the pain still lingers

After three years… or thirteen… or thirty.

You “got on with things” and “muddled through”

Holding on to the echo of their memory.

Time may not heal your pain,

The confusion, or the anger

But years roll by quite quickly

Leaving numbness where once you were.

Your own despair and bleakness

Still can’t ever be enough

To empathise or sympathise

With a decision so bloody tough.

“There’s nothing that you could have done

Or should have done,” they’ll say.

But you know all the things you said

Or shouldn’t have said that day.

You want to ask them questions

Why wouldn’t you answer the phone?

Or talk to me? Just say something

That meant you were never alone.

I thought that I could trust you

I thought you’d understand

How much it meant to us to have you

Right here, close at hand.

And still it keeps on happening

Each and every day.

More and more who come to find

The only answer that they may.

“Their choice,” I’m told, “their life,”

Their right to go away

And leave us with their memory

Tainted by that day.

Yet still you blame yourself

For something you couldn’t have changed

A choice they made which left you here

With nothing but a grave.

So as you face another morning

With a hole where once they were

And Hope to hell when someone’s low,

Another tragedy won’t occur.

You try and help as best you can

When you hear another’s tried.

But it cannot change your inner thoughts

Of fury when they died.

A “special scar” they call it,

One so many have had to share.

“You’re not alone” they tell you,

But it still feels as if you are.

Yet still you are not listening,

Can’t be told how you made me feel.

How you left me just with memories,

Instead of you right there.

I really don’t feel comfortable with poetry as a form, but a recent incident I was told about reminded me about some things that I’m probably too ignorant and unqualified to comment on. Instead, a list of thoughts seemed to be a more respectable option, and that list very quickly was restructured into the above, any shortcomings and inappropriateness of which I can only apologise for. It remains very much a “work in progress” as I attempt to climb that rather steep learning curve, so any constructive criticisms would be happily received.