keys

i first noticed her voice:
its strident teenaged whine

i couldn't quite hear the words
but i thought it was a complaint about
a boyfriend
or independence
her softhigh voice keened,
began to quaver

like a similar substance
attuned
i quivered in synch to her
flood of emotion

i glanced over to her table and saw the tears start
felt my own internal waterworks
set off
in sympathy
half-embarrassed by the scene
half-empathizing
with her voice
trembling
like the tears on her lashes
like her pale lips
now crushed into a tight line

i tried not to watch
i should not watch
her pain
even in this public place
this greasy spoon
with everyone's coffee sending up
wisps of communal steam
to form a warm and invisible net

but i had to look
once more
she calls silently
a siren's destructive song
screaming
~my pain my pain~
i had to look

and looking, saw
and feeling, knew
that her song was more than what i first felt
more than just
a sullen rant

the sea of her sorrow
was too great
and i had to look

i saw she had moved to the other side of the booth
joining her father and her older brother
all three were
weeping
openly

sobbing

the two children leaning in on their father, crying
hard
the father, strong and steady in the middle
his arms curled around their shoulders
his eyes tightly shut
his mouth a line that will not break
but i can tell he's weeping

inside

i force my eyes away
i should not watch
their open grief
even if i am vibrating in tune to their silent signal
even if i feel my defenses
kick in

~numbness~
spreading
to dampen the steady waves of sorrow

i tear my eyes down
to see their breakfast plates
one smeared with raspberries
a bloody pinkish smear
like heart's blood,
i think.

and soon after
i leave
refusing to look again
at their hitching mass of arms and tears and thin mouths clamped shut
unable to stifle
the great rush of sorrow
suddenly crashing over them

(backwash over me)

i leave
unable to look again at
a family of three
pressed solidly together like one creature
trying to fill
the loss of a fourth

~mother~
unspoken

like heart's blood

smeared

silent

undulating

grief

~mother~
~mother~
~mother~

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