This Final Sleep-Tight

A poem about the death of my birth parents

In poetic grief, I weave these threads of threnody

Through my eiderdown of rhapsody.

As memories seep through the seams of this elegy,

The hems of my heart fray gracelessly.

 

Can you feel my cries caress the eventide?

Can you hear my hushed tears singing lullabies?

If you can see my sighs echoing inside,

Please taste solace in this goodnight.

 

Etched in this final sleep-tight is my forgiveness

For your years of addiction and negligence.

Etched in this final sleep-tight is your endlessness.

I pray you’ve found euphony in the silence.

Author's Note

When I was eight, I went into foster care, as my birth parents were drug addicts that constantly neglected me. Despite that, I still loved them. Eventually, I was adopted, raised in a much safer, loving household, and did not hear anything from my birth parents for years.

In 2010, I was told that my birth dad had died from lung cancer.

And then, in 2016, right as I had found her again and was just about to initiate our first contact in many years, my birth mom died of accidental drug overdose.

While I have since moved on from all of this, I do feel like it probably affected me more than I thought it did at the time.

This poem has been through MANY rewrites over the past nine years, and has finally arrived at its final version. Enjoy :)