I'm Sorry I Assassinated Your Daughter

I'm sorry I assassinated your daughter
I'm sorry she had to die
I'm sorry her story had to end
Sometimes I wish I could give you your daughter back

I call it assassination because that's what it's called
When someone important is murdered
And I know she was important to you

I still remember the night she died
She had been dying for months
But I remember the final blow as if it was yesterday
She laid on the bed to sleep
But I was the only one who got up

I don't want to take your daughter's place, not exactly
I don't fit in that spot, I'm not daddy's little girl
She was never the clone mommy wanted
I can never fill the hole she left
But then, she never filled it that well either

I know that you still love her, oh so much
I know your faith calls for resurrection
But I assure you she's not coming back
All that's left is me, and I know I'm not enough
If I was enough, you would call me son
If I was enough, you would accept who I am
I didn't have a choice in how I was made, you know

I know I'll spend my life not measuring up to your dead daughter
And my life has a different trajectory
Than anything she would have known
But I keep living in hope that your love will transfer
And I keep being disappointed, yet still I hope

I know it's hard for you, that this strange man
Is wearing your dead daughter's face
But I'm doing my best to change it into my face
And I wonder, as I do, how long you'll call me by her name

I'm sorry I assassinated your daughter
I had to end her story
So that mine could begin

I'm sorry I assassinated your daughter
She had to die
So that I could live

Stutter

Words have always been my weapon

Oh yes

My power, my refuge...my prison

At times

Because I feel, oh so much I feel

And I am blessed, or cursed,

With the words to make you feel too

But sometimes words fail even me.

And I don't

I don't

I don't

I don't know what to say

Because I don't I don't I don't

I don't know what I'm feeling

But maybe if I try

If I put pen topaperandform 

L e t t e r s

Perhaps the words will follow

Because I need words

To tell me who I really am

To define emotions

To make them understandable

To make them bearable

The problem is that what I need

Doesn't yield to what is

And feelings don't yield to words

Nor words to feelings

And I die And I live and breathe and die again And break and shatter and fragment and who am I who am I Who am I what am I...

What are these

What are these tears

Sliding, dripping, squelching

Their salt-kissed way down my face

And off the tip of my nose

To land carelessly

On this green comforter that has known

Far too many tears for someone who

Doesn't. Cry.

And far too much blood

And oh I need blood

If I cannot have words

If they will not spill from my lips

Or drip from my pen

I must needs cut them out of my

Very skin

And yet and yet and yet

I must not.

Too much hinges on my supposed

Stability.

And yet I need...

I glance back at three pages

Just filled with words

But I have said nothing

I am not defined

I still feel

I am still full of

Incomprehensible 

Unbearable

Salt-kissed

tears

And I and I and I.

And I love

Oh how I love

And I will not stop

Have not stopped

Cannot stop

And it hurts

Oh it hurts

Because love is a fire

And I have spent more time

Being burned

Than being warmed

And I cannot cannot cannot

Feel this way

Where are my words

And why why why why why why

Have they deserted me?