Stay...

We had a some good moments with Storm a  few weeks ago, and those moments are always bitter- sweet.   It's honestly been years since we've seen him functioning that well, we had almost a week of just happy moments with the light in his eyes.  It was like he was back with us, but it didn't last very long.  This is the story I've been re-telling the Dr's for years, like a broken record--but we are still far from being heard.  Explaining how my son has periods of functioning for a few days and then switches to an intense drive to decorate, with a need to buy things, he starts talking very fast and has so many ideas that he is overwhelmed by them at times.  This then switches to him becoming extremely irritable, angry, unreachable and sometimes dangerous when he is in a rage.   It's hard to talk about these things, but it's even harder to live through them every day.  It's akin to losing your child over and over again, without knowing  how or if we will ever be able to help him.  This poem expresses what it is like loving a child who has a mental illness, what it's like to live through the storm, over and over.  We are in the midst of it ...

                                   

                                     Stay

When time slows down and the autumn leaves sway,

               Like the changing of seasons, my heart aches, "please stay."

In your deep gentle eyes, like a tide near the shore,

               I ask you to linger, just a little bit more
Like the breeze brushing past me, a kite ready to soar
              I wish to be with you, the way it was before
For a moment I held you, I saw you were there
             You knew me, you saw me, inside there somewhere
Briefly we laughed, we cried, we embraced
             I desperately wanted to keep you,
To stay in this place
             If I could capture this moment and hold it in time,
I would stay here forever and you would be mine
            The love that I love you with, binds me in chains
While I helplessly watch you, destroy what remains
            My gentle sweet boy, with the sweet humble eyes,
Taken away to a place we can't find
            A place, of forgetting, a place of lies
A place where you hate us, a place we despise
            A place so unreachable, where you can't hear
A place where you're lonely, full of great fear
           I've tried to reach you, I've tried to get in,
Yet love cannot pierce what holds you within
           I claw uselessly, desperately to unlock the door,
That holds you in darkness, until you are no more
           I look in the same eyes, once full of joy
Looking back full of hate, an unrecognizable boy
          My world getting smaller, my heart full of grief
I long for your freedom, for peace and relief
          I feel your deep sorrow, your anger and pain
Flooding your heart like a down-pouring rain
         In the midst of the storm, I can't find you at all
I know that I've lost you, you're deaf to my call
         Yet I hope, beyond hope, as I look for the light
I hold out a candle, I wait out the night
         I pray that I'll find you, when the storm finally clears
I ache to just hold you and keep you near
        Then I see it, I see you, like a flicker of light
And I run to embrace you, and I stand up to fight
         I brush off my injuries, bind up my wounds
Walk into the fire and reach for the moon
         I grasp through the darkness, I run through the deep
I pray without ceasing, my child to keep
        Just when I'm close enough, your light in my view
The darkness and shadows, consume what I knew
        If only time could be stopped in its place
I'd linger with you, caressing your face
        Stolen from me, the months and the years
Washed away is your childhood with each fallen tear
         I sit in the shadows, as autumn leaves sway
If I find you again, I'll beg you to stay