Who I was, Who I'll be, a poem

I used to be the light in the room...

the one who chased off everyone else's gloom.

Now the door stays closed.

Now the phone stays quiet.

It isn't you. It isn't anyone.

It's the blanket...

the dark, heavy one...

laid across me every morning before I even open my eyes.

I don't have the strength to be someone today.

Not the dad who called just to check in.

Not the one who got to hear about your day, your stories, your plans.

Ryan, I don't know how to be him without you here to be him for.

Most days I don't call it healing.

I call it not worse.

That's the whole victory most days...

not worse than yesterday.

I wear you close now.

Ash against my chest where your arms used to land.

Pictures of you, everywhere.

Waiting for you as if you'll walk through this room.

And I wonder if that brighter version of me is still in there...

still breathing somewhere under all this weight,

waiting for the blanket to lift.

Most days I don't know if he survived this at all.

But grief doesn't erase a person.

It just buries him for a while,

next to the twenty-two years I spent being your dad...

a loss too, one people rarely talk about,

the losing of who I built myself to be for you.

So I sit here. Quiet. Heavy. Still here...

not gone.

Just gathering what it takes

to someday open the door again...

not as who I was.

As who I've been.

And I have no idea who that man will be.