If life didn’t go south, so long ago
I would not sit here now
Missing my dog
And the other one, too
Driving for hours
Sharing a bedroom
Arranging visitations
Listing my grievances

If life stayed simple
Like little me thought it was
My sister would not work in the city
I would see her more than every other weekend
I would see my mother more than two days in a week
My whole life would be in my one home

And I would not sit here now
Pondering on the past
Because it would have never happened
I would be peaceful, I think
One house,
Two parents,
Two sisters,
Maybe one dog

And I would not have to travel north
For another half of my life
Which turned into a third,
Maybe a quarter,
Soon a fifth,
Eventually statistically insignificant

But I would not sit here
Writing of a split life
I would sing of a family, held together
Only by walls
Of turmoil and feeling trapped in only my one home

But I would still suffer and listen
To a mother condemn my own
To spouses unloving
To what we are supposed to be
In a church happy with the hidden

If life had not gone south,
And burst at the seems,
I may still be happy,
But I may still be broken,
Struck by a different hammer,
Different pieces of the same whole.