A kind of healing

At a place of resignation

Accompanied by a vague apprehension borne of indecision

tapping at the periphery of consciousness

sufficient to create a sense of unease

A child that has long been waiting in the wings

Like a lottery winner, poised, anticipating the prize

She has waited eagerly, hopefully, for years

She has ridden with resurrected resilience

a roller coaster of hope and despair

This is it, the euphoric conception of connectedness

Wrapped in a seamless blanket of rescue and love

and then, No! it actually wasn’t that after all.

And now, the arrival at a kind of realisation of what is

Some homecoming and marrying of logic and emotion

That the heaven scented gift that for so long

felt gouged mercilessly from her being and that she craved

Is lost forever

That place of nurturance, now a dream with no substance

No backward steps are possible or ever were

But she always really knew that

But waited still in such unhope

No return to that infantile place of innocence and trust

Only a painful dull acknowledgement remains

That she lost out

That pain cannot be recompensed with comfort

That abandonment cannot be turned into rescue

And fear cannot be soothed enough with love

No holding

The child is fading, her voice now vague and feeble

entombed in the archives of lost hope

The lack is established and the gap just is

A hollow remains

Grieving for a while for what cannot be retrieved

And anger for the injustice of a childhood beyond repair

And so she waits for acceptance to settle