The One Who Knows Me.

I spent a very fast weekend with my sister, Mother and closest cousin.  It was grand.  We celebrated my sisters pregnancy with a shower and got a little 'talk time' in, too.  It made me happy and sad at the same time.

Tina and me in Barcelona last October.

Sad, because Tina (sis), Kay (cousin) and I are getting older.  In my head, I still feel like I'm about 25 and they are 26 and 27.  But I'm 38.  Kay is 39 and Tina is 40.  Not that it's bad.......it's just not what's in my head!  We grew up together.  We share memories that not one other single person in the world remembers.  We know things about each other no one else knows.  Loves, deep hurts, joys.  Triumphs and mistakes.  We've shared so many of them.  We have a bond that is eternal.

Almost every poem I have written has been reproduced and sold as wall plaques and greeting cards.  It's strange to me, sometimes, that my poetry sells because they are all so personal.  I do admit that there have been times when I thought, 'Oh....I need a graduation poem.  I should write one'......or you can insert any other holiday......and I sit down and scratch one out.  But most of my poems.....they are for one person.  Each poem for a different one person.

When my sister turned 30, I wrote her a poem.  I cried as I wrote it because it really is so much about us.  Again, I always laugh when it sells on a card because I wonder if anyone knows what it is actually talking about.  But, then again.....I'm sure other people have deeply personal relationships with sisters and cousins and mothers and friends, too.  And perhaps they really do get what I was going for.  And that makes my heart smile.

Here is the poem.  I hope it brings to mind someone lovely and special to you, too.

THE ONE WHO KNOWS ME

Sometimes when I am sitting alone

In the deeper part of the evening,

Accompanied by solitude, tears in my eyes,

I gaze at times, which are no more,

Though I nearly feel and see them still.

And I reminisce about

The one who knows me.

The one I’ve tread a lifetime with,

Whether wanting to or lack thereof.

The one who lifts me with a word

And kills me with a glance.

Who knows every failure and remains, still.

Who loves and hurts the same as I.

The one who knows me.

We, two, know of sins and honesty

Which have shaped us in either way.

And ache with a fervor some would dismiss as

A need for growing beyond,

Or perhaps simply looking away.

But I will never fear to accept the pain

With the one who knows me.

No one could completely know

What is inside us, where we have been.

Though some say we even look alike,

I believe shared experience 

Bonds us more than blood.

And I thank God everyday

For the one who knows me.

Our lives may no longer parallel.

Long days may pass between

Before we talk or touch or listen.

But no matter what eruptions shake our lives

Or what happiness comes our way,

No one shall compare or take the place

Of the one who knows me.

Good night.