To: My Child. Poem by Tara Schley

All of the things,

I
should
have,
could
have,
would
have
done.
I won't do
for you.
It is too late.

All of the things
you could have done,
you won't do.
It is too late.

All of the things
you should have done,
you won't do.
It is too late.

You are dead.

Nothing can be done to change that.
Nothing. Can. Change. That.
Nothing.
Not one fucking, unfair thing!

Still,

my brain thinks up these scenarios.
It's pointless and torturous mind fiction.
For you won't ever be even a little bit less dead.
No matter how many times I play the 'what if' game in my head.

Over and over and over and over and over.
Over
and
over,
my mind invents these fictional scenarios to make you live.

But,

life is not a pick an ending adventure book.
The end of a life can't change.
All these fictitious scenarios and it never changes.
You never live.
And
all of these things,
undone and unsaid,
remain.

It is and always will be,
too late.

Tara Schley