Proof of Existence

Fragile, helpless child

Mom used to watch you breathing

Calm delicate heaves.

One step, new milestones

A fall, a bruise, a triumph;

those days, all your own.

You learned to speak less

finding comfort in silence;

Loud deafening earth.

Now: bills, pills, Mondays,

Toilsome loop of misery;

No escape, just yet.

When all breath is spent

Name on stone, bed of decay,

Will they remember?