Tag: Orphan

INDEPENDENT

0.17 … Ink

I am nearly 5,256,000,000 miles
from who I was when
you last walked on
this Earth with me.

I am nearly 5,256,000,000 miles
into the jorney
of learning to live
without you both.

But unlike orbits about the sun,
some things cannot be quantified.

I cannot know
how many times I’ve cried
or
how many times I’ve asked God why
or
how many times I’ve smiled
or
how many times living has felt worth while.

There are things we cannot know
and there are things we can,
but one thing that’s been a certainty,
is that when a pen’s in my hand,
I am whole.

I know that
in my blood flows
an infinity of ideas, emotions, and ink.

Though my parents are gone,
the legacy they have given me
is a heart that can’t stop bleeding,
but the ink that has from it flowed
has helped me understand and know
that my reason here is to
write words and tell stories.

I wish they were still here,
but their absence molded me
into who I am.
I am a well of ink and hope
giving the world all I can…

⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash | (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

0.16 … Lost at Sea

There will come a day
when I’ve lived more of my life
without them than with them,
and the thought of it
rips and breaks inside of me
like an angry, ocean tide.

I imagine the forever
worth of my days that they
won’t get to see,
each moment missed
like another grain of sand
on a lonely, open beach.

My children will be
precious shells they’ll never get to hold.
My stories will be
sandcastles they’ll never see me mold.
Memories of them are
a horizon line—untouchable, distant gold.

Laying in the soft night sands,
I stare onward into the sky,
making constellations of
things that will never be,
a future where they hadn’t died.

Their love and the loss
runs through my veins
like salt runs through the sea,
but at least their spirits
are now like the water,
ever flowing, ever free…

⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Frank Mckenna on Unsplash   |  (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

0.15 … Last Day

College graduation day,
and they aren’t here,
like they should be.

But I am,
even though I
almost wasn’t.

Four and a half years,
who knows how many all-nighters,
countless hours worth of tears,
and facing down every last
one of my fears…
yet I am here,
even though
I almost wasn’t.

I wish they were standing
here by my side,
so they could see
and could know
that I managed to survive.

But though they aren’t with me,
and are somewhere far gone,
perseverance became my inheritance,
and on this road, I’ll carry on.

⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Johannes Plenio   |  (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

0.14 … Over and Over and Over and…

When Mother’s Day rolls around,
when Father’s Day comes about,
when their birthdays pass,
when their death day trauma lasts,
I am reminded over and over…

What’s your mother’s madien name?
What’s your father’s middle name?
What’s your given birth name?
Questions that haunt me over and over…

Are you going home for break?
I’ll be at my parent’s till late.
I made them an anniversary cake!
Phrases from friends that plague me
as I am reminded over and over that
I have no house,
no home,
nor parents left
to celebrate.

They’re gone
and there is nothing I can do.
You can’t understand it
unless it happens to you.
Loss doesn’t happen and then go away.
It is felt eternally, every single day
in the smallest ways,
over and over and over and…

 

⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Caleb Steele on Unsplash   |   (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

0.13 … Alternate Reality

Dad ruffles my hair
and tells me that
he’s proud of me.
He reminds me to keep my feet
like Bilbo told Frodo
because we share a love
of literature and adventure.
His smile crinkles,
the footprints of crows
at his eyes edges from surviving
so many losses, yet still living.
He hugs me.
I’m so happy…

Mom chokes back tears
and gives me just the right
glimmering card that somehow
perfectly and elegantly articulates
how much she cares about me.
I wipe the tears from my eyes,
(I am this sentimental because of her)
and promise to call her every night
so she might vicariously live
every college experience
that she never got to have
through me.
She hugs me.
I’m so happy…

These alternate realities
I built for myself from
crumbled could have beens
and noxious never wills
are all I have.

My college years
were not marked with
their loving hugs
and cards
and literary encouragements.
My college years
were stained with
my desperate arms
and empty mailboxes
and perpetual disappointments.

I survived without them
somehow,
but the scars run too deep.
So to function,
these alternate realities
have become longed for treasures
that I keep.

⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash  |   (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

0.12 … Redefined

Independent once
meant freedom, and
the chance to chase
down my dreams.

Independent once
meant stability, and
the chance to stand
on my own feet.

Independent once
meant untethered, and
the chance to dance
to my spirit’s rhythm.

But college admissions
must have missed that memo
and chose to redefine
what Independent
meant in my life.

To them,
it was the pretty
and professional way
to say orphan.

What I wouldn’t give
to rewrite their dictionary
so Independent no longer
reminded me of loneliness and
meant something beautiful
once more…

⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash  |   (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

0.11 … Longest Ride

They were there for me
right when I needed them.
They came to the house,
came to my room,
and sat with me,
knowing the silence of my friends
was what I needed to
drown out the howling
happening inside of me.

As family who felt like strangers
filtered in and out through
the doors all day long
with fruit baskets that
somehow meant sorry
and empty refrains of
we’ll be there for you,
the friends who were
my beyond blood family
sat with me, holding me,
understanding that
silence and their presence
and a soft stuffed animal
was all I needed to keep me
from joining my mother
like I so longed to.

I don’t know if it was
them or me that said
we should go stargazing,
but it was the only thing
that I wanted to do.

I got into my friend’s car,
laying across the
back seat by myself.
But my friend in the
front passenger side reached
back a hand through the
cracks between the seat and door
and held mine the whole way.
I held onto him for my life,
as I watched a world
that no longer made
any sense to me
fly past out the window.

Some days,
I feel like I’m still in that car.
Still watching a world
that no longer makes sense
zipping past me,
as I grasp for a hand to hold.

Sprawled on the grass in the Valley
beneath monuments and stars
I looked skyward,
wishing I could fall up into heaven
and find my mother waiting for me.

At home the next morning,
I awoke to my friends all still there.
Did I dream it? I asked them.

Silence has never been a more painful answer…

 ⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Pan Xiaozhen on Unsplash   |   (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

0.10 … First Morning

They made us wait
in the nice room
with the cozy chairs
and paintings on the walls,
as if these trappings
could calm away the chaos
of hearing the words
I’m so sorry,
we did everything we could,
she didn’t make it…

Waiting for my sister
to arrive at the hospital
broke me only further.
I had always tried to
keep it together for her.
But this time I couldn’t.
There was nothing left of me
to hold on to.

When we got home from the hospital,
the rain was at last slowing down
and the sky became the kind
of golden rose that it does
after a fleeting yet
powerful storm.

I looked up at the splendor,
and tears returned, as I raged that
my mother no longer stood on Earth with me.
Yet, I was grateful at least that
she had been welcomed home to
such a glorious, resplendent sky.

 ⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover photo by Tevin Trinh on Unsplash  |   (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

(CONTENT WARNING: This poem discusses personal experiences with witnessing death. Please read at your own discretion.)

0.9 … Mom

They say your life
flashes before your eyes
when you die.
No one tells you
the same thing happens
when you are the one
to witness death.

My door got kicked in.
My sister was screaming.
My grandmother was crying.
I was sobbing,
but someone had to
keep Mom sitting up
until the ambulance arrived.

I sat at her side,
arm around her,
like it had been
hours before,
when I said good night.

But I could see it,
feel it…
life was leaving her…

I thought of every moment
that she held me as I cried.
I thought, this can’t be happening,
Mommy please don’t die…

Now all my mouth
could utter was
gutteral shouts,
begging my mother
to stay alive.

The sirens in the distance
sounded planets away,
I was too busy trying
to hear her breathing,
listening for a heart
I needed to keep beating.
The paramedics arrived,
and I moved to the side.

The way I cried, MOM!
haunts me everywhere I go.
My mother dying in my arms
is a pain I wish I didn’t have to know.

⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Elayna Mae Darcy  |   (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)

INDEPENDENT

0.8 … Last Night

It was like any other night.

Mom watching HGTV in bed,
me in the other room
messing around on the computer.
But then suddenly, DING.

The moment I’d been waiting for.
The email about college move in day.
I burst through my mother’s door.

I couldn’t contain the joy as I said,
It’s really happening! It’s all coming true!
Though still tired from the hospital,
I knew she was excited too.

I begged her to get my laptop,
promised I’d pay her back
through the summer.
But she refused,
and she promised,
I’ll get it for you,
one way or another.

(It was the last promise she made me,
and as always, one that she kept.
I just wish she hadn’t had to die
for the life insurance to be left.)

It was like any other night.

I hugged her, said I love you,
and headed off to bed.
I wish I’d known
it was the last time…
there’s so much more
I could have said.

⚬⧝⚬

---

For more from this collection, visit

elluminations, vol. 0
INDEPENDENT

Click here to learn more about elluminations. This poem is also available on Medium.

Cover Photo by Quin Stevenson on Unsplash  |   (elluminations © 2018 Elayna Mae Darcy)