Come over sometimes
With an excuse to have tea—
Bring your pain; I'll take out my anxiety.
I've burnt the prescriptions;
I'll serve you sweets—
So you can pull my claws out of your throat,
Stuck like a sneeze.
I know your sores won't heal with apologies,
So I have filled your cup with my confessions, you see?
I have been you; you have been me.

The days when you needed refuge,
I gave you a hemlock pill,
Stretched your lips to sing prayers
Or be still—
Pushed your hands over your eyes,
Not to protect, but for tears to be wiped.
In wars, you either hold grenades or die.
So you did buy your own shroud,
Dug your own grave in poetry—
I raised you like a mother I promised to never be.
But what I did is what I did—
If I have been me, you too were me.

Still, come out sometimes
From the photos with torturous smiles—
Before which your family now drinks and dines,
Yours and mine.
It's time to free you from the ancestral suitcase.
Over your corpse, I painted my days;
I've learned to rage in tamer ways.