to a rock; you are diamond.

you used to be my hero.

maybe you still are,
when the days are violet and
i laugh at the way you used to dance
around the living room to Estrellida
and talk to the fishes; when the tears i drop
are not for you.

that is when you are still my hero.

it is appalling,
the way i have stopped
plucking out your grey hairs,
instead i cannot bear to look at them.
the way i have stopped getting your crude jokes
because the crude words have
sunken in and etched themselves
onto my skin when i was many times
their victim on the days your eyes are
black as coal and earth-less.

i remember embracing the tuck of your frown
and humming to your rants like they
are things to love,
and maybe then, my love was truest
because you didn’t need to be happy
and fit in my wants for me to love you this much.

my heart sags at a certain angle
for the stones of your heavy regrets
i inherit, yet these are not the kind of stones
we can surgically remove
or throw down a hill, because these are
the stepping stones i have acquired
in growing to understand the woman
who used to brave the world for me
and now sits in the dent of her pains
hoping for the world to ask her forgiveness.

you used to be my hero
and i feel like i am betraying you,
each day as they pass
when you make plans for a summer
you and i will not share,
but you make these plans anyway because deep down
you know they will never happen
yet you do it because it moves me
and gives you more to lose
when i too, become the tales of your suffering 
you will tell your sisters on the way to dinner.

today he said the way i licked my teeth after the meal
reminded him of you
and i was angry for the negative tone
but was i angry
because it was negative,
or because i didn’t want to be like you anymore?

i once wrote about my biggest inspiration,
and it was you,
because i loved every inch of you
and woke up to your words like gospel.

you will forever, still be the hero,
the inspiration. for you are
everything i loved
but everything i never want to be,

because growing into you has never looked so heartbreaking.

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