Letter to my Younger Self

From the beginning

You got miniscule

Amounts

Of the love you needed

So it was no surprise

That that abandonment

Turned into rebellion

Surrounded by sickness

You cried

You screamed

But nothing could kill

 Your compassion

Your empathy

Like that Christmas

When there was no tree

So you hung lights from the walls

You found family where you could

Clinging

Perhaps a little too desperately

To your friends

But somehow you survived

Even when you looked around

And saw everything as dying

Even when the only way

That you knew how

To feel alive

Was to bleed

If I could send this letter

Back in time

I know that

You would not believe a word

Because that life

You lived

 Seemed like

Some merciless eternity

But I am here to tell you kid

We made it

We escaped

We flourished

And best of all

We found our voice

Take comfort kid

We survived

And we never have to go back

To those days

When tears trumped laughter

We are loved

We are lovable

Thank you

I would have never

Become this person

Without you

Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect

There was once a gilded frame

It gleamed silver and its edges were embellished

It held a photograph

A cherished memory

Caught in a shutter snap

And a camera flash

There was a smile

A familiar place

A beloved face

A character out of place

A moment

A piece of time

An angle, a light, a line

Color, and black and white

Sepia tones and twilight

Before you could know

The photo began to grow

Suddenly

There were new memories

Some blurry

Some focused into purity

And some that you were

Not even sure

What they were supposed to be

But that is the nature of memory

It’s fuzzy

And amazing

It is truth and it is lies

It continues on

Even as the moment dies

It is everything we are

And yet nothing we can touch

Whether it exists or not

Doesn’t matter much

Because we are nothing but a collection

Nothing but a collage

And irrelevance is the consequence

Or the cause

So you may try to place them in a frame

These photographs

But when recollection is the game

If you can remember your name

And see behind your eyes

In the endless universe of your mind

You will realize that picture perfect

Is a joke of fate quite cruel

Because each picture is seen

Through vision in the extreme

Because the memory

Is only what is felt to you

So place them in a gilded frame

And soon it will shatter

It is the moments that make up life

Not the display that matters