Rummaging through a whole bunch of papers this evening, I found a poem scribbled on the back of the “Behavior Observation Record” given to us while E-Niner was in the hospital this spring.

I usually don’t keep poems I write, because they pretty much suck. This one didn’t get plopped into the recycling bin because I thought that one day I might set it to music. Seems kind of rock-ish. But let’s be honest, here. The furthest this little ditty is getting is 15 minutes of fame on my small-ish blog.

Can’t sleep.

Thoughts creep

inside my brain

about this train

ride of pain.

“No pain, no gain,”

that’s what they say

when they’re okay.

‘Cause when it’s you

that don’t seem true.

Just want one clue

that we’re headed in the right direction.

Are we headed in the right direction?

there is a silence when you leave your child at the hospital

when you admit your child, admitting your own inability, guilt.

there is a silence as you walk further and further away

from the raging child who wants you to be with him

but doesn’t know how to be with you.

the screams become more faint until they

dissipate into the elevator shaft that goes

down, down, down

bringing you to the silence of the traffic,

the silence of the sirens blare, of pedestrians gabbing,

of that doctor with her low spectacles, huge briefcase.

will her briefcase full of papers give someone answers?

or is it just a front, because really, what do we know?

what can we know about a child who sees things, who feels things

that the rest of us don’t, our senses silent to that child’s.

who is to say that child is wrong? that those things don’t exist?

because they do, somewhere, if only in the mind.

to silence an unquiet mind…

there is a silence when you back your car out of stall 60 on the 8th floor of the parking garage

when you back your car out, and look to see your child’s seat: empty.

there is a silence in the home, in the night, in the dark.

and you wonder, can your child find silence too?

can your child find peace.

how i wish for you, my deep, dear son

how i wish for you

peace