An Old Poem

I am haunted by the ghost of you

Standing loose-limbed and angry

The corner of a mouth turned slightly down

A brow furrowed almost indistinguishably

I can taste exasperation

I can taste disgust

I can feel frustration

"We" has wilted, slowly

No matter where I go

I'll still be there.

A Dream

I swim clothed through water cold and black. I am in a marsh or swamp of some kind and I push through roots and stalks and detritus. To my left, I believe, is the end of the world. I can see abandoned houses, but they are off the map, beyond the border, unreachable. One sits closer to me than the rest. Laid over the edge of the front porch, its neck arched, head resting on the bottom step, is a horse recently dead. I look behind me and see other horses struggling through the water towards me. Though they struggle, they seem at peace. I struggle, too.

I step gingerly through woods newly clothed in snow. The world is now devoid of color. We do not walk together. We do not often walk together. You are always ahead. I trample the imprints your shoe has pushed into the powder in boots a size too big. 

Some things that I remember

I remember rolling decades old matchbox cars down lengths of decades old orange, plastic track across a decades old living room under the watchful gaze of a decades old grandmother who had watched my father do the same. Wind could be heard blowing down the chimney. The cat's bell clattering as it turned a corner.

I remember peering over the top edge of a lawn chair and the sudden and panicked fear that I felt as I unexpectedly tipped over the edge and dropped onto the rocks below. I have forgotten the pain.

I remember the barn behind my aunt's house encircled with blackberry bushes. 

I remember being thrown over Austin Weaver's shoulder during an altercation. Was it cold outside? I walked away in tears.

I remember one brother throwing the other over the bed and the way the window shattered when his foot flew through it.

I remember riding my bicycle home in the cold, wishing I had stayed right where I was.

I remember a thunderstorm summoned.

I remember the scars stretched across skin.

I remember hiding under the rear seat of my parent's Peugeot.

I remember being afraid of darkness. 

I remember building gasoline bombs in my neighbor's garage. 

I remember four of us in my basement, asleep and content.

I remember the pain that took my breath away. Feelings of loss and betrayal. 

I remember a darkened basement and pedaling in circles, and children laughing.

Circa April 7th, 2005

You are easily the most enjoyable aspect of my life.

Circa October 5th, 2006

The other day I doodled my gravestone onto a page. The epitaph read:

"There's nothing wrong with anything."