i guess you never had much of a chance
to live a happy, normal life,
growing up in your house,
filled with tension,
filled with strife:
from the mother whose pain
was still all too present,
and the reminder you were
each and every day
of the father who lived
a few towns away
but never had the time
to come see you
because he had started a new life,
with a new family,
and new kids that weren’t you.

and that is how i remember you,
subsuming the rest of your life
into your childhood,
reading your life like a book
in which the ending is foreshadowed,
inevitable;
and even though i now realize
that i never really knew you,
cousin though you were,
I still think that i know
what made you tick,
what made you go away:
running away from your past,
running away from your pain.