Not About Me

How much easier it would have been
for me

if all those unseen, unshown inner burnings,
all that vomiting, all that nausea,
all that delirium, all those punctures,
all those forced awakenings
all those forced feedings,
all that fear
about what is going to be done to you next,
by whom, where, when,

had been my fears and burnings and not yours.

How much easier it would have been
for me.

But this is not about me.

The loss,
now looming,
is not my loss.

I am powerless,

except to wrench from you
what's left of you

and I will do it.

I have no words.

Only boundless, endless love,
for you, my own dear little Phaya.