Fragment

“ Have you ever reached that point in your life when you’d swear you’re dying?”

He pauses - crackling silence on the other end, like an old black and white movie. “Dying?”

“ I mean these dreams I keep having. Every one of them… it’s the same thing… I’ve died and I am a ghost…. Or I die and I wake up resurrected and it’s a younger me from 6 years ago… and it’s so sad and so heartbreaking because I haven't even met my wife and my son hasn't been born, and probably never will be... I'm so sad because it's as though they've both died... erased from existence. And I know I could never recreate the life I had led… it could never be the same. I have this dream, it’s a recurring dream, and every time I wake up racked with chills and convulsive sobs.”

“ So you think you’re dying because of this?”

“ My health is fading fast. I get dizzy all the time. My mind won't stay focused on one thing. I just… I know I’m dying. And it keeps raining, it's always raining. Why won't it stop?”

" I don't know what to say. I can only advise you try and stay strong."

Memories crumble and fade and drift away into the night sky like a trillion fireflies. Deep rumbling breakdown of rolling storm clouds outside and the world is so wet and gray. Burning arm bathed in gangrene sepia tones and the crackling creak of countless roach feet scuttling in between the walls and inside numb toes. Can't differentiate between this happy life I made and the one I barely escaped.

Time after time

Flashback to moments left behind. Rewind to a happier time, sunshine down on carefree days of carefree play. A careful daze in tearful waves I recall the walk, the bittersweet road leading to a dead end cluster-fuck traffic jam of un-kept promises and deceit and of course if you’re lost and you look you won’t find me.

Chickenshit coward I’ve lost myself, hope and joy turned to gray, time after time you fell and in my hubris I looked the other way and pretended nothing happened. So you left, and went so far away, and all you left behind I stuffed in a pipe and burned as my eyes roll back fighting fears and fighting tears - I catch myself from falling down.

Death claimed you when you were so very young and I never had the chance to tell you that… I cared. I really do give a fuck and I fight the urge to drink and drink and drink, I fight it and I lose, because I do… I really do… don’t know what to do without you. This pain is nothing new since you left so far... so far...