sky high poetry

it gets different. 
that's what someone told my mother when she asked if it ever got better -
the pain, the grief, pure anguish that is knowing the person you love the most is gone forever
that nothing is left but an urn
some photos
and a lifetime of memories that you cling onto, desperate.
it doesn't get better, it gets different.

different
because when i was nine,
i felt nothing
and though everything changed,
my days stayed the same
i didn't feel pain
maybe i thought he was coming back.

different
at fourteen,
angrier than i used to be
hell of a lot more cynical
weighed down by the knowledge that nobody comes back from death
but still, i felt nothing.

different
because at nineteen,
i stood neck deep in denial
it is what it is
it's just my life
don't feel sorry for me
honestly, i barely even think about it.

different, at twenty three
when for the first time i looked in the mirror and it hit me -
i'll never hear his voice again
he'll never walk me down the aisle
he didn't get to see me learn how to drive or go to college or hold my hand through my first heartbreak
he didn't even get to see me grow up.

i didn't get to say goodbye
i never saw it coming
the years have changed me, aged me, sometimes i think they've healed me
but one thing remains the same -
i'm still that little girl who lost her dad.

different, now
feeling everything i couldn't the last fifteen years
the pain, the grief, the anguish of knowing that he's gone forever
that nothing is left except his urn
our photos
and nine years of foggy memories.

i've learned to live with it
live without him
but his absence cuts deeper, sharper
than it ever did at nine or fourteen or nineteen or twenty two.

so when someone asks me
does it ever get better?
i tell them
no, it doesn't.
it gets different.