fearful, each time i walked the corridor that
your light would be aglow with attendants ready
to catch you as you spiraled

as each garbled word would fall from your lips
i'd try to catch them to assemble into
something comprehensible

angry and pouting your eyes would seethe
into the back of someone you pretended to know
and the shadow of paranoia would hang

you'd never remember i was there
so painful to see you struggle to
breathe, eat, sleep, be

why did i return
hope was somewhere, not inside me
but behind a door i never chose

hope surprised me tonight
when you greeted me and recollected
a siblings visit that was real

the syllables before you'd saved and
reformed into intelligible phrases
once fractured on the floor

and later rays of orange beamed behind
remnants of Isaac once fierce, now
rolling slowly collecting bits of dark

hope returns to your eyes, a muted gray
now  hazel with a glint of gold
hope - a mended vessel beating in my ear