March 10, 1996
Dear diary,

The visions are starting again.

How naive am I,
To think
That seeing the future,
With all the
Worrying
Anxiety
Even hatred it caused me
Was only my head.
Because I can now
Assure myself -
They aren’t.

Because my visions are starting again:
…………………………………………………
An adolescent girl
With my flowing black hair
And emerald green eyes,
The kind no one


Could get sick of staring into,
Is sick.
Or has done something to herself.
Or has been in an accident.

My daughter.

Lifeless as a cloud,
She does not lay in a hospital bed
But floats;
Her usual glow does not come from her Inner happiness of a sun
But from the white cloth
She’s been dressed in.

The only sense she radiates
Is one of heartache.
Not that of a failed relationship,
Or regret
But something even I cannot understand.

All I can understand is that,
No matter how many times
It’s been proven wrong to me
In the past,
I can try to change her future.
………………………………………………………..
-Siobhan

March 13, 1996
Dear Diary,

I’ve made my decision;
Not that it really was one anyway.
My unborn daughter
Deserves a life in which
I cannot provide,
Other than a name:
Willow.
If living a life away from me
Is her only chance of a full one,
Then I hope my Willow’s branches
Will grow and grow and grow
In the yard of another.

-Siobhan

February 7, 2014
Dear Diary,

My nightmares
Don’t stop or start.
No red light green light.
Just a constant yellow
Like the sun.
Yes, it is beautiful -
Growth,
Tans,
Everything thrives
In the sun.

But once we enter its realm
The sun is not hot but
Scalding.
It is not radiant yellow but
Too intense to look at.

And once the sun
Turns into a red giant,
It sets those who are watching
Into panic
Because they all know
there’s nothing
they can do;
It was inevitable
From the start.
So when the future
Flashes before my eyes,
There’s no thinking,
No judging,
No acting.

Imagine having another
Set of eyes:
One set
Like those you have,
And another
Which sees
Every consequence,
Every mistake
Someone around you makes.
The guilt of not being able
To change something
I knew would happen
Would overcome
Brushing it all off;
So I learned to deal with it.
What good can a warning
From a “psycho” do, anyway?

And when a flash comes,
I can’t forget it.
I follow it,
Study it.
The ones I finally understand
Are put into this
Safe haven of a journal,
The only thing
Which knows of my curse.

Those surrounding me,
Like seaglass,
Which smoothes with each
Wave, each
Grain of sand,
Cease to amaze me:
They “don’t deserve”
The consequences of their actions.
Yet they do nothing
To better themselves
Until someone digs them
Out of the sand.

And out of all my flashes:
The scratched seaglass
The dull, brown seaglass
And the tiny piece of seaglass,
This message in a bottle
Was inescapable.

-Siobhan

February 19, 2014
Dear Journal,

My nightmares can ruin anything.
In just a matter of seconds,
They can turn a walk across in the park
To a ride on the highway to Hell.
I’ve seen my life flash before my eyes;
The scent of any delicate lily
Reminds me of the wedding
I could have had,
The graduation
I should have had,
The prom
I would have had
If only I didn’t do everything
In my power
To stop it from happening.
Seems like I’m the only one
Who can change her future.
I’m also the only one
Who knows how to.
………………………………………………………
This was a quiet night
Whose only sounds
Came from car radios,
Not crickets;
Whose only smell
Came from the gingerbread
In the little cafe,
Not fireplaces;
Whose only taste
Came from hot cocoa,
Not the pine trees;
Whose only luminescence
Came from Christmas lights,
Not those dazzling in the sky;
Whose only feeling
Came from fright,
Looking behind you when walking,
Not the refreshing, chilling air.
Nothing natural was left.
I try to shut my eyes,
Pinch my skin,
Anything
To end this nightmare.
But still, everything paused.
Except for the girl in the ghost car,
Only visible to those
Who clearly seek it,
With long black hair
And unmistakeable,
Emerald eyes,
And the drunk eighteen-wheeler driver
Running the stop sign.
Fast fast fast.
Crash.
All in an instant,
The girl’s head dropped down,
Before I could witness any reaction.
Her body lay there, still,
With a heart barely beating.
………………………………………………………
Everything swirls back into place,
The wreckage of cars
And quiet night - gone,
Leaving me remaining,
With a heart beating faster
Than the speed of the truck,
And a face redder
Than one of frostbite.
Back to the sidewalk, midday,
Without all the carols and cookies and Christmas lights,
All so fast that no one
Would ever remember it.
But of course I did;
Even I can’t change
The terrible fate my daughter
Would face from the start.

-Siobhan

February 22, 2014
Dear Journal,

I’ve waited at the little cafe
Four nights now.
Stop sign still intact,
No unknowing Willow,
With a whole life ahead of her,
To be seen.
With as much time as this,
You’d think I’d have thought
Of a plan -
But nothing comes to mind
But the regret;
It can sweep me away
After years and years
Of thinking I did the “good thing.”
………………………………………………………
I’m transported to the hospital room.
Not any one; The same one of regret
That pounds on my mind
Every single day.
Siobhan, you did the right thing
I always promised myself.

Yet this time,
I can’t convince myself.
A winded woman with
Running mascara
And breath reeking of vodka
And desperation,
Curls up at the edge
Of “her” daughter’s bed
Because she is
All that she has left.
Richard, where are you?
She doesn’t realize her thoughts
Leave her mouth;
“This past year has been so tough,
I can’t lose another.”
She shuts her eyes
And rocks back and forth;
“Willow, Willie, Wil-”
She wails between breaths,
“I need you.”
………………………………………………………..
I can understand
Being in a fallen family;
Starting and ending
With just a mother,
I’ve always been
Alone
In the sense that everyone
Can see me,
But no one
Looks at me.
Even I’ve grown to realize
That I’m not here.

This is true loneliness.

I can also understand
That I trusted the wrong family
With my daughter.

Like seaglass,
She was washed around
From wave to wave.
The first one
Which brought her into the sea
Lapped her up
With a foamy cushion;
But when she was too heavy,
She sunk to the bottom.
In the sand below the surface,
No waves could pick her up.
The current dragged her
Until she reached
A riptide on the other side
And finally,
Her edges were roughened.

I don’t scream at myself inside
I screech.
I don’t regret my decision for her life
I mourn it.

-Siobhan


February 24, 2014
Dear Diary,

It happened.
After the hospital room
Fades back into my view
From the chair outside the little cafe,
The town is no longer quiet.
Three people run past me
Frantically
Towards the road,
Police sirens screech
From what seems like all directions.
Ten yards away
Lies a dragonfly with a broken wing
Next to a soaring eagle.
The more that comes into focus,
The more I take in.
Screaming,
Confusion,
Panic;
I missed the crash -
A moment of life or death -
Because I was too busy daydreaming.
A surge of anger downpours onto me.
I feel it bubbling inside of me,
Erupting out of me like a volcano.
She died because of me. I killed her.
………………………………………………………
The slightest vision
Takes over my head;
Willow’s mother lays on the floor
Of the hospital room,
Even more lifeless than a cloud.
Her grip on her vodka bottle loosens
And her fingers uncurl, one
By one.
Her irregular breathing
Smoothes out;
Not because she’s calmed down,
But because it has stopped.

Just this split second
Has provoked more emotion in me
Than any other.
I can’t help but soak
In the burning fire of my throat,
The straining that comes with tears.
This one, worse than the rest.
………………………………………………………
-Siobhan




March 15, 2014
Dear Diary,

These last few weeks,
I’ve spent in the hospital room;
No funeral was held
For her mother,
No memorial service.
Just a piece of reality in the paper.
No heartfelt goodbye,
Just another sad death
Of a small town;
Not that emotion
Would have made a difference:
People talk
Until their words have meaning
And that “drunken mother”
Would be remembered
As “that hard-working, unlucky widow.”.

Without the comfort
Of her beloved mother or father,
I need to be here for her.
A nurse enters
And pulls the shades up,
Allowing the light of morning
To pour in.
Birds chirp as if there’s no tomorrow,
And the slightest breeze
Ruffles Willow’s shining hair;
I stroke it,
Just like I imagined I would
As a mother;
I thought I’d never get the chance
To cradle my little girl.
I embrace her
Like I never thought I’d be able to.
This time, I realize,
I’m not letting you go.
And when her emerald eyes
Consciously open, with a sparkle
In the light,
The hole dug in my stomach
That has left me dull
Grows with flowers,
And the colors inside me
Express a smile,
Giving her the warm welcome
I’d always dreamed.

Love,
Siobhan