Bet your bottom dollar

Tuesday night, and I am sat outside your room again,

In the chair that is too wide for the space,

Trying to keep my pain inside the lines

Of the hall light that is not enough, on its own,

Just as I am not enough, on my own.

We, me and the light, seep around the door,

Waves in different forms to rock you to sleep,

And to keep me from it so that I,

Indomitable me

Will be all that you need me to be.

Which I fear that you are beginning to perceive,

Is not enough.

You are too old for this, and too young,

For despair this deep to roost each night

Upon your bedframe.

Too young to imagine that to die might be

Better than life.

Too old to be frightened of the dark

That I, invincible me, am dazzled nightly by,

So that whether it is Tuesday or Monday or Friday

Or Christmas

I will sit outside your room in the chair too wide for the space

And in blindness feel for the words that can explain why

I will get up, every tomorrow, and I will eat, and I will work,

And I will try to inhabit sunlight I see only in fleeting beams,

Brief candles lighting the way,

For you.

As if I take you for a fool.

As if I do not feel the darkness thicken from repetition

While the tales I tell weaken for lack of belief.

And I will tell you, it will be ok, get some sleep. Tomorrow

And tomorrow and tomorrow.