I am He.
You, She.
We are moored
Inexplicably.

I bide.

Lillian’s Echo

In the dayroom’s dim embrace, Lillian sat—a survivor etched in time. The air clung to stories, whispered secrets, and the lingering scent of suffering. She, the one-character legend, spun her tales—prose blabber, raw and unfiltered.

Born into the system’s cold arms, Lillian emerged as an adult onto Brooklyn’s unforgiving streets. There, she tasted the bitter brew of inhumanity—the kind that seeps into bones, leaving scars unseen.

Abortions etched memories on her soul. Each child, born or unborn, imprinted on her heart. Tears flowed freely among the day roomers, their lives force-fed with drugs until the final breath. Neglect and abuse danced in shadows, haunting their fragile existence.

Lillian’s own children—thirteen souls conceived in the crucible of ****. Some lost to the system, others to her desperate choices. Abortion, a relentless companion, etched its refrain: “You will never forget.”

Ms. Smaldone, wise and weathered, shared her truth. Money, she warned, was no legacy for offspring. Instead, travel—imbibe life’s nectar before the curtain falls. Merril Lynch riches crumbled when sickness struck, and family greed devoured her nest egg.

Lillian listened, her eyes reflecting pain. She vowed to seize life’s moments, to honor the lost and the forsaken. Four west day roomers, souls adrift, yearned for salvation. May they rest in peace, their echoes woven into Lillian’s prose.

I woke to the warning blasts
Of fog horns on the St. Clair.
They comfort like a weighted blanket.
And the rain falls evenly, now,
On my vegetables,
On everyone's lawn and garden.
All is as it should be this morning.
Quiet, ordered and secure.
I'm glad I'm not over there,
Or anywhere else,
But here.

That sun is deceiving.
Faux fluorescence, fickle morning light.
In my eyes
so bright,
on my skin
cold as night.

Conniving contrivance of combustion,
yellow liar in the sky
feeding my hopeful mind
full of summertime delight.

Don't step outside,
lest you find
that sun is deceiving.
False light,
bitterly white,
dancing in the
azure heights.

Yes, I'm the husband.
You need to treat me as such.
Like Ward Cleaver.
Don't condescend, ridicule, or find fault
In little things.
Am I to ingest this drivel
Till I technocolor burp?
I wait for a thaw or a thigh;
A small smile would register on the Richter.
In my house there are many rooms
For a Piata, a David,
But Moses has reign,
Coming down Sinai.
Thou shalt have no false gods before me.
I was a believer,
Before I did,
Before I do.
Today I am an agnostic and an atheist.
I do not believe in sanctity
Or forgiveness.
I sow what I have reaped.

It's so funny, my approach to life has always been this convoluted dichotomy of ideas and practices where I never wanted to give a **** about anyone or anything while simultaneously wanting to have a good reason to do so. I couldn't just chalk myself up to being an *******, I wanted the freedom of some diagnosable dilapidated mental state. Like somehow if I could just write my apathy and general laziness up to some kind of disorder then it would all be justified and I could feel at ease about just letting life pass me by and letting people who love me down, over and over again. The whole process has been so ******* and backwards that I started to feel like maybe my goals have been achieved, and by just working towards this contradictory state of mind I actually managed to make myself some kind of insane. The act of wanting to not give a **** about anything, whilst simultaneously wanting a good reason to be that way perhaps set me aside as the thing I wanted to be most in life: crazy.

     My father is schizophrenic, and he left when I was maybe ten or eleven years old but I never hated him for it. In fact in my adolescence I actually idolized and envied him for the freedom of responsibility that was granted to him through his diagnosis, I saw it as a boon in life. A way to cast aside the obligations every one of us faces in a modern society and just live day to day like nothing ever mattered. I wanted that same freedom, but more than that I wanted the same reaction that his behavior garnered from other people in my life. No one was ever angry, or hated him for how he acted. They all just pitied him and would spout throw-away lines like "well, what can we expect?" or "I'm sorry your father is so sick, Justin." when he came up in conversation. My mouth watered at the thought of all that precious pity, I craved that dismissive demeanor that people gave him. Like sighing when a seagull takes your sandwich, what else did you expect would happen? It's pointless to hate the animal because it's just doing all that it knows how to do. There's no sense being angry, or even disappointed. You learn to hide your food better next time but ultimately you have to accept that it's just a part of life, and the only thing anyone could ever do is just sigh and hope that it never happens again. For years I wanted that same sympathy, I wanted to be crazy and lazy and not give a **** about the people who loved me. I wanted to be just like my Dad.

     It took me a good twenty six years and my Mom having an (ultimately fatal) aneurysm to finally realize that this way I've been living my life would never grant me any semblance of freedom at all, and in fact the things I actually wanted the most were those same loved ones and obligations that I've been absconding from all this time. Not only were those the things that I wanted most, but they were what I needed to bring me that much craved sense of freedom and justification that I've been looking for all along. Now I'm almost thirty one years old and I think I realize now that my father was never free, never liberated from any form of societal norms or responsibilities, rather, he was just but a prisoner. Locked in a mental jail cell, a drunk tank within his own mind. He couldn't escape his inability to be a fulfilling father, he was locked up within his psychosis and there was never a key to begin with. I think now that maybe him leaving was more about doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons, and I mourn for his presence in my life and for the sorrow he must've felt when he said goodbye. I can feel his sorrow echo in my conscience, for I know that even with his cursed, so-called freedom of responsibility, the things he always wanted most was just to be able to be there for me. I don't hate my father, but I do pity him and I no longer want any part of that pity for myself. I'm still a lot like him, but rather than embracing the worst parts of who he is I try to channel the positive aspects instead. I try my damnedest. Besides, at one point in his life he was a man that my Mom fell in love with. A charming, handsome guy that had a relentless love for cars and games and laughter that went unrivaled by anyone else I had ever known, back when I was young and still spending time with him. He could cast a spell on anyone and illicit laughter and smiles, genuine and hearty joy.

     Those aspects are what I now choose to remember, what I now choose to channel and project. Because what are parents really? Just people who are trying to take all the best parts of themselves and pour them into their children. They're just people, nothing magic, nothing sacred, working at crafting us into better versions of themselves. To that point I say that he may have succeeded (though I'm still awfully terrified at the prospect of fatherhood,) and although what I thought I learned from his absence in my life was misconstrued in my mind for so so many years, the true lesson that he taught me is so brutally simple. To just be there.

i had the windows open

the heat

and of all the nights
not to be able to fall asleep

and the neighbors had their
bedroom window open, too

some songs you never forget

and he played the same song
over and over
like ocean waves cresting,
falling onto the sands of time
and never lost in memory

yeah, the fireman
had a wife and child

some songs stay with you

touch you some place
to deep to descern

some corner of your mind
holds it tightly, angrily,
hidden away in that dark corner
of never forget

i don't know who sang it
or the title
but i learned every line
that late august night

it ended with

"Lord it'sad to be alone
help me through this night"

and the fireman turned off the stereo

no muffled sound
no flicker of light
just the shot


"Lord it's sad to be alone
help me through this night..."

some songs play over and over

... on and on...

We should know better
With or without schooling.
If we willfully refuse,
If we disregard the facts;
We are ignorant.
That's below below average.
We made a choice.
A choice is not a chronic disease.
Not like mine.
It was never my choice.
I don't know if it happened
Before or After,
But the manifestation was slow, profound,
And addictive.