i remember sitting and letting tears fall down my cheeks;

those tears soaked my socks

as i was sitting--

i was sitting cross legged

and begging,

i was begging to stay at the hospital because

even though i hated the smell, hated the cold, 

hated the looks of pity i got from adults,

my mother was there.

and for memories so fuzzy they are

awfully clear.

it's like wiping down a mirror after a shower

and staring at yourself through streaks of condensation,

the white of the bathroom wall blaring behind you

and everything comes flooding back,

and my own tears soak everything.

they say home is where the heart is

but i really,

really i don’t,

i don’t think that a hospitable can be a home

especially not when you are sitting in the comfy chair of the hospital room

days after your thirteenth birthday.

maybe not a birthday, maybe an anniversary,

an anniversary of how long you had been with your mom,

an anniversary of love,

maybe a last.

my memories of those days are cracked.

maybe just as cracked as the mirror i broke in a dream

maybe i might start believing those myths

because if watching your mother die 

on the hospital bed,

drool sliding down her fevered skin

isn't unlucky,

then frankly, i don't know what is.

one of the clearest memories from those days

is also the foggiest.

because i wouldn't stop crying,

i wouldn't stop crying after they told me i was too young,

and too young my ass because i was barely thirteen

and watching my mother die.

they told me to go home for the night,

because i was too young to sleep at the hospital

but maybe home is where the heart is 

because my house wasn't a home without my mother.

it wasn't home, ever again, not after she died.

sometimes i still long for a warm embrace

but then i have to remember that she's not here

and it was somehow easier,

yet harder,

when i could still climb the stairs and visit her room

of what was home again when i was chest deep in memories of her,

but i can't do that anymore

because we moved

and i can't do it here because

she never got to see the new house.

and it's funny, because i didn't get to see her

ever again

maybe it's not funny

but people always say that, when somethings not funny

so i always say that it's funny

that she passed exactly a week after my birthday.

i always say it's funny she never got to say goodbye to me,

because she was already too far gone by the time i woke up.

i always say its funny how i wasnt aloud to stay with my mother

for her last, dying moments

and i wish i fought harder because

my memories of her are starting to decay, just like her body 

not even a month after my thirteenth birthday