I can speculate

About this tortured state

About the names I dream

It just doesn’t make it so…

I have tried to hate

But always hesitate

I’m never what I seem

That’s why they always go…. away

And it’s about damn time

stop making the fault all mine

Her tiny footsteps behind

Could’ve never been in my wake

I can’t touch this…

I won’t feel this…

I can’t hear her…

I can’t even see her face.

She won’t read me…

She won’t be free…

She’s just a mother…

And I’m the voice of a different place.

I could fantasize

But what would that jeopardize

Playing house in the burbs

Just wasn’t in my cards

I won’t apologize

She doesn’t have my eyes

This mournful news perturbs

it just swallows so goddamned hard

I can’t name this…

I won’t blame this…

I won’t dare miss…

I can’t even see her face.

She’ll outlive me…

She’ll outpace me…

And kiss her mother…

Then ride on to a gentle place.

Important lesson here folks... you cannot regret failing to attend a party you were never invited to.  Read that again and make sure you understand it.  It is incredibly pompous and arrogant of me to presume that my presence was missed in a particular situation... so let's call this poem "verse therapy".

Gillian is a little girl I read about one day, so she really exists.  I am sure she is adorable.  I am sure she lights up whatever section of the hemisphere she currently resides in.  I am also confident that she believes in Jesus, Santa Clause, and talking clownfish.  But the fact of the matter is, I'll never know, and frankly, I don't want to know.  I am just happy that she was born.  Her being here means I didn't really lose, that she didn't really win, and everything ends up in it's proper place.  This will make sense to exactly no one.