This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is mine
This is my ode to the fatherless children
My condolences
My sonnet to women who have lost husbands
To a disease so unbiased
It could be me tomorrow
A letter on my doorstep
Calling my name
One Doctors visit
Three months to live
Then I would be writing to me
This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is mine
This is for the daughter
Who will lose her father
To a battle
That she never really had any control over
Chemotherapy
Radiation
Endless intravenous medication
The scale will continue to fall short
150, 145, 140
Soon he will be smaller than you or I
By the time of his passing
He will be just a sack of bones
Holding steady at 109
This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is mine
I speak to you
From tainted eyes
Mind, body
Spirit
Everyday a struggle
To achieve a new normal
Every moment an outcry
For the attention I won’t get
The affection I won’t feel
The love I won’t receive
The laugh I will not hear
This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is mine
The smell of classic chap stick
After shave and cigarettes
lingers
On laundry from November
I try to imagine a man
draped in the T-shirt
The one I hold
Empty in my hand
I try to imagine the strumming of a guitar
Two voices singing
A duet of Jewel
A standing ovation
Things that I would have
If cancer were not a thief
A vagabond
Upon my knees
Transient thoughts
Somehow focused
On the same old thing
Pestilential thinking
I blame it on myself
The loss was my fault
I should have known
The signs
The answers
I should not have been the weak one
I should have been stronger
I was pathetic
And so then was he
This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is mine
This is for the ones
Who will grow up
Accomplishments unnoticed
By overshadowing events
A mother too self obsessed
They will settle for the median
But belong so much higher
They will struggle in the closet of night
With self doubt

Fronting in the day
To prove they are worthy
Never coming out on top
With no one to tell them
Second place is still okay
This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is mine
This is my outcry
My outrage
My disdain
My hatred for that word
Six little letters
One sinister name
So much swindled
Moments
And memories
And I love you’s I did not say
Implied with affection
Just 4 months ago
Sitting bed side
Saying don’t go
But tears fell unnoticed
Prayers were not answerd
The miracle did not occur
This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is my own
This is my self loathing
My detest
My selfishness
I wanted
I needed
I could not see a life without
I did not see the pain
The fear
The courage
The lack of rest
This is my
Heartbreak
My gut wrenching pain
Time that I cannot reclaim
This is me yelling at God
Telling him I’m angry
Calling him a liar

Asking him to take me
But it’s too late for that
This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is mine
This is my discontent
My upset
My misery
This is what it feels like
To be alone
Broken
This is what it feels like
Fathers Day
Empty table
Birthday’s come and go
But cards of condolence
Remain in a drawer
And as sad as it is
You dread the day they stop coming
Because as long as they do
You know they haven’t forgotten
And sometimes all you need
Is some spoon-fed sympathy
This is my voice
There are others like it
But this is my own
This is the flip side of the coin
The greener side of the grass
The hope that comes
After a loss of great mass
This is the sun
On a cloudy day
This is the
“we will meet again”
Infinite
Time as it is
Boundless
Untamable
Reunited
At last