Toys are scattered about the floor.
Robots and Dinosaurs attack plastic soldiers.
The Grandsons are enacting a ****** battle.
No one is safe! Not even Grandpa!
     I've been killed, apparently,
     by a flying super-robot that
          knows no mercy!

I worry I won't be
playing with them next year.

Darkness all around the world.
Darkness all inside of me.
Whispers behind my back,
murmurs of pity, I think.

I still have much I can offer
        to these boys.
        Or so I'd like to believe.

I'm not ready to stop hugging them.
Telling them, again and again,
how important they are to me.

Little boys live in a special world.
A place of mud and sticks,
        bugs and stones.
        Imagination the
        only rule they follow.

***** hands and faces,
       bodies screaming
          for a bath.

I understand this world.
It used to be the same one
         I lived in before.

Ah dear Grandsons.
        Will you miss me?
Will you think of me
      in the middle of your
            playing?

Will you feel me?

Grandfather lips
        mouthing
           "I love you."

Your hearts so innocent.
Lives so uncomplicated.

Neither of you understands
          the concept of dying.

As it should be.

Stay this way as
long as you are able to.

The real world is a cold place.
A mixture of grieving and denial.
A faithless emptiness that
        consumes the desire
            to achieve.

Toys are scattered about the floor.
Robots and Dinosaurs attack plastic soldiers.

Dear God, how I wish this was
        the only battle I was fighting.

I find my emptiness at the beginning
of panic. The time changes, and as I pause,
between the magic and the real, a sudden
nothingness descends, and somebody
goes away, plans forgotten and mislaid.

It does not matter that the dark falls
too early, skies damp with the the
hopefulness of being confused again.
Even dancing holds no appeal, as
the music is plastic pop with a beat
but without heart. I sense the pouring
little I've become, escaping only when
hour clicks to another number.

Darkened rooms lend whispers.
Can you hear them? Let the sentences drop
and fall into a descending tone, for the
collection of platitudes are heavily
pregnant with hints of beeping bells.

They've gathered here, manifest
with their antiseptic concerns
Mumbling to one another even though
the sentences are necessarily vacant.
What small measure of happiness I
am able to endure is saturated with
routines that are tiresome, heavily laden
with standing still in rolling cyclones.

I kick at the plastic straws that litter
the drinking cups of plans come undone.

It was harsh,
It was cruel,
It wasn't beautiful,
You leave me at the end of the road, alone.

It was agonizing,
It was ruthless,
It wasn't perfect,
You took a detour, leaving me at the sahara, alone.

I was stranded,
Unable to walk nor crawl,
As I laid on the burning sand of the desert  i stared into the sun, hoping it will take my sight away and drain this well of love i have dug for you.

I did not ask for much,
I just want to be loved.

Nakanai,
I am tough,
Hard as a rock,
Unshakeable,
Nakanai,
Nakanai,
And i cried.