Good Days

I watched ghosts take turns inhabiting you
Sometimes they were monsters
Sometimes they were even smaller than me
Sometimes they'd miss shifts for days at a time
And I wondered where you were.
Most days I was sure you were an alien or a robot disguised as yourself
And whenever I announced that I knew you weren't the real her, you never denied it.
Your eyes were windows suspended in midair, the memory of a house holding them in place.
Impossible to look into, could only be looked through.
I wanted to live in the warmth of the house that used to be there.
Every once in a while it looked as though you were being rebuilt
But your foundation was too treacherous, and the wind would always blow you away.
This was the curse of my homelessness,
But I could never wander...
You were homeless too.
You didn't care to eat for days at a time, so there was no need for food. You were genuinely too tormented to remember my belly.
I was sustained by big, strategic gulps of water that dropped coldly down into the hollow...
You had space heaters and electric blankets in your room, below mine, as you twisted yourself up, genuinely too consumed to remember the frosty breath I could see escaping my lips a room above.
I sustained myself with shivers and as many layers of socks and gloves as could fit onto me...
They shouted prayers to be sure I could hear
"where did I go wrong with this child? How has she broken? Please forgive me...I really tried my best...on this lost cause, selfish, defective, disappointing. What a waste."
I almost wanted the heavens to hear you, so they could swallow me up.
But i know now, not to take it personally.
I don't think I was the child in your prayers, whether you knew it or not.
I would have endured their two edged tongues for a thousand years to spend a day with you.
I did, in fact.
Your good days are my most precious keepsakes.
I wish I could put them in a box big enough to climb into on the bad days.
They were the foundation to my own house, when i learned to foster myself.
I clung on every word, just beaming up at you. I couldn't have adored you more.
Thank you so much. Thank you for our good days.