Let us Remember

It's hard to look back
knowing what you have lost.

Being the parents,
now questioning your every choice
Or the siblings
feeling guilty over every rivalry
and argument
Or the friend
Feeling like you should have done
something, anything.
Even just said goodbye.

So many words left unsaid,
so many memories left unlived

We bleed for each other,
knowing the other's pain
We bleed for ourselves
remembering even for a single moment
each day
What we have lost.
Or rather,
Who.

A whole generation
at war with themselves
At war with their demons

Our lives are slipping away
but who seems to notice these days
anyway?

To the common eye
We are among the broken
and the damned
Cursed by ourselves
and each other.

We are told this is all we have to live for
And some days I let myself believe that.

It is so hard to look back
knowing what you have lost
while uncertain of where
tomorrow will take you.

Dreaming of another life
somewhere far away from here
and now
Someplace safe.
But in many cases, my love,
that is death.

Let us instead dream
of tomorrow
of living for each other
getting through the storm
to see the sun
shining brilliantly overhead
kissing our bruised
and scarred skin

Let us see ourselves for who we are
-Broken
Soon to be fixed
-Lost
Finding self
-Damned
Saved by a hope
for a better tomorrow.  

 It is hard for me
to look back
knowing just how much we have all lost.
And for that
I bleed for you.
All of you.

Let us remember.

“That was the thing about the world: it wasn't that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn't expect.” 
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King