Brayce Yourself

Be patient with me
I am six years into
a life I was never taught how to live,
a language still unfamiliar
no matter how many days I’ve spoken it.

Six years
of waking up
and remembering all over again.
Six years of carrying his name
in the quiet spaces between breaths.

I was never shown
how to exist this long
without my son,
how to keep going
when the world expects healing
but my heart only knows learning.

Be patient with me
when grief still finds me
like it did in the beginning
sudden, sharp,
unapologetic in its return.

Because some days
I have learned how to laugh again,
how to stand in the sunlight
without completely breaking
and other days,
I am right back there,
missing him with the same ache
that time has not touched.

Six years
and I still say his name
like a prayer,
like a lifeline,
like a way to keep him near.

Be patient with me
if I need to speak of him
not as a memory,
but as my son,
because that is who he still is to me.

I am not who I was
before loss found me.
I am someone rebuilt
in pieces,
stitched together
with love that never left.

So be gentle
this is not a path with an end,
only one I am learning
to walk
with him beside me in spirit,
six years later…
and forever.