The ghost of my childhood is lingering around the wave of impurity. The more I imagine, the more I drown in my own misfortune.

I’ve had a rough night.
I’ve had a rough decade.
To clear my head I decided to go for a drive,
the cold autumn air, the dark sky, the vacant streets and the glow of the traffic lights can sometimes heal.
Not tonight.
The cold air chilled me to the bone,
the dark sky is without a single star,
the vacant streets create an atmosphere of being on another world; completely desolate, utterly isolated.
The traffic lights are all red, like the anger that burns inside me.
I shouldn’t have gotten in my car tonight.
I have a single headlight, my passenger side burnt out sometime last week.
These things bother me more than they should.

I drove to my old home, where I spent twenty three years of my life.
It’s gone and I knew it would be, they started the demolition in spring shortly after I left it, during one of our coldest winters yet.
But now, a house is being constructed on the lot.
Where once stood a small, modest, cottage looking home has been turned into only a gigantic skeleton of what will be a modern house that holds no unique characteristics.
It will blend in with every other house on the street.
Notice how I say house, not home.
They built right to the hedge, Jesus, they didn’t even leave room for a yard or driveway.
Besides all that, I can only think
“my mother’s soul left her body on this land.”
The same land they’ve covered.
Her temporary bedroom when she turned palliative will probably be their living room, or maybe bathroom.
Whoever lives in this house won’t know that the most wonderful mother in this world died where their house is standing.
They won’t know it was a Christmas morning, and the last thing I ever heard from her mouth was “your arms are getting strong” after helping her to her OMS supplied hospital bed.
These things bother me more than they should.

I usually drive fast and play my music loud,
tonight I’m driving fast to get anywhere but where I am,
tonight I’m playing my music loud to drown out my sobs.
The kind of sobs that hit your body like aggressive shocks.
I hate crying, I despise sobbing.
I don’t get embarrassed, but I’m mortified by my own vulnerability even though I’m alone.
I even fake a laugh and shake my head.
Pretend it’s nothing, and that I’m an idiot, that “that’s just life” and so forth.
These things bother me more than they should.

When you lose the only home you’ve ever known,
are you destined to be transient eternally?
Is it possible to find someone who will love every part of you,
and love you enough to actually show it?
But most importantly,
does it ever stop hurting,
even for a ******* second?

Scraggly,
In face and heart
Staggering
By the harbor,
A celebratory place
For families to flock
And sight-see the city
By the ships and the docks.
While the sea gulls fight
Over scrimpy scraps,
A lone man traverses,
Seized by mind traps.
Disoriented by the shadows
Of his past,
Taunting and tampering
With his freedom, at last,
He's broken his vow of silence
He promised he could pass.
Reality so far removed
From his ruminations.
Passerby's passively wonder
What attracted him to the concrete.
Overactive imagination
Is an answer I'd repeat.
Occasionally another may marvel,
Where is his family?
Waiting in vain,
In the background,
In the rain,
Devoid of way to entertain
The possibility to take the reigns
Away from his deceptive beast
That guides his woeful way,
Fighting for fistfuls of his feast -
A price he has to pay
For having an untreated illness.
Now I have no say
In pillows or cement.
He chose the latter.
Now all I can do is feel lament.
If you see my father,
You may see kindness in his eyes,
A mind that's rapidly firing,
Comforting words to himself he's ironing.
If you see my father -
You may see him time and again,
You may see him in the sea gull,
Harmlessly scavenging,
Heartily conversing,
Heartbreakingly existing -
If you see my father,
Let him exist
However he chooses.
I have no choice
But to do the same.

It's been a back and forth motion:

losing
  gaining
losing
  gaining
losing
  gaining
  maintaining
losing

for nearly a decade.

I can't seem to find* my way back up from this downward spiral
and I'm losing more than mass as I descend.

I don't have anyone close enough to stop me. Not that I'd let them anyways.

I'm going to keep
losing and
losing and
losing.

I'll turn sideways and disappear.
Shrivel up into .nothing.

And maybe then,
   just then,
I might feel valid.

(*correction: I can but I refuse to.)