These people we love

These people we love

But that we cannot reach

We feel the love boiling inside

Feel that they are somehow a part of us

A part of our story

But sometimes the words fail us

We struggle to meet them

Across the gap of time

Across the opportunities

That made us different

Made that our dreams are not theirs

That our challenges are their dreams

The language we speak

Has become foreign

Somewhere between the travels

And the books

We forgot the codes that use

To be ours too

We can’t seem to find the words

To tell them about the things

Important to us

Meaningless in their world

Just like they struggle to explain

That their world is moving alright

Even though it seems to be standing still

I dread the awkward silence after the greetings

The blank space after the small talk

The resounding emptiness over the phone

When there are no more relatives to ask about

When all that is left is the result of years

Of glossing over things that may hurt

Of building secrets that become family legacies

Of not naming things so that

The fragile equilibrium

Will never be shaken

Because family is also that

Things that go unsaid

Buried resentments

Profession of love that we shy away from

And then

When it matters

We realize that we never learned

To be vulnerable

To open up

We never fully trusted

That unconditional love

We thought we shared

So we let the silence set in

Then we make excuses

Business we have to attend to

Work to do

“I love you Mom”, we finally say

Before hanging up

So fast that the answer remains

A question mark

Just like all else

Magdalee Brunache