For Whomever It May Concern

so no one would see me cry, 

but sometimes you just can’t escape

Apathetic eyes, 

Not looking around. 

Bent neck 

toward a screen, 

always 

hanging down. 

Feet shuffle,

staying steady. 

Mouth tight 

in a line. 

Music squashed, 

inside ears. 

Keep checking 

the time. 

Bundled up

to the ears, 

barely showing 

skin. 

Don’t touch 

if you can. 

As long as 

you are in. 

Head down.

Mouth shut. 

Don’t look

and don’t ask. 

This isle is 

Manhattan, 

and here, 

When I was very young

you made me see light 

for what it really is. 

You, in your own young age, 

just a sapling teaching a seed. 

I knew what good was by knowing you. 

To me you were a grand oak, 

Always drenched in sunlight, 

more my God than the one you’d always told me about.

But then, 

came that promise 

you had me make you 

when I was young,

I think something on the news scared you,

or maybe a patient at work made you remember what you could lose. 

You came to me

with your lip jutted out, 

the way you can’t help when you’re sad, 

and you bent down on one knee

and looked me straight in the eyes. 

I remember the weight of your giant hands,

as large as baseball mitts 

on my chicken bone shoulders. 

You looked me straight in my eyes, 

identical to yours,

you asked me to swear, 

with a line in your brows

that if I ever got lost, 

I’d find my way back to you, 

no matter what I had to do, 

I’d wait until you saved me, 

or until I saved you. 

You asked me

to fight for life, 

just for you, 

to do whatever it takes. 

Somehow at so young an age, 

I knew there was suffering in 

whatever it takes

and I was scared. 

But the look in your eyes, 

as you begged me to try, 

made me realize that we are the same. 

In your soil-brown eyes 

I didn’t see light, 

but a blind, wild fear that overcame. 

I nodded to you,

just a tree to a tree,

that I’d always fight just for you. 

It was then that I saw

the shadow you cast

as the brilliant tree that you are, 

and I finally saw the dark to your light,

I was cooking

us some dinner 

the other day 

and suddenly

I saw you 

in the dark window 

in the hallway. 

There you were

just across from me

wooden spoon in hand 

stirring something 

that smelled good

with a hand 

on your hip

looking like a calm sky 

after a storm. 

Still in your uniform

you stood, stirring, 

looking like a flower, 

dressed in dirt, 

dreaming of sleep. 

Your hair was tied

with that curt little curl, 

your face was 

tired and stern. 

I stood there 

looking at you, 

looking at me, 

with my hand on my hip, 

looking like a calm sky 

after a storm.