I am from

Moments that felt like holding on to something that is slipping away

I am from Christmas mornings
Heart leaping
A child’s excitement
Pulling my father down the stairs
He is all scattered gray hair
Pointing every which a way
And a soft Scottish accent,
Chuckling,
And my mother is all smiles,
Eyes bright and laughing

But always, the smile is pulled tight
And behind it all,
Pain,
Pain resting upon her
Like an invisible cloak

And I am cross legged on the floor
Eyes bright with the reflection of Christmas lights
Pushing away the too-old-for-my-age knowledge that
One day
One day
my mother is going to break

And I am going to lose her.

'Come,
Take my hand'.
Said the boy
That I,
Created in my head.
To live a little lie,
And go here instead.
Escaping my pain,
Away from such dread.
When I open my eyes,
I see nothing but red.
But I cave inside,
And here,
I fled.

I grew up in a house of closed doors and retreating footsteps, so light I wondered if anyone was even there. A house of ghosts, defined by a thick layer of dust on the couches, and doorbells that were never answered.

I grew up in a house of silence, the only signs of life: coffee mugs in the sink, and leftover crumbs on the kitchen counter. Silence so palpable it wraps itself around my throat until it becomes comforting. The microwave cannot reach zero here.

Birds chirp incessantly on Sunday mornings, and the weight of their music sits heavily on my chest. Plants reach for a slab of sunlight trickling between dusty window shades. I can hear their leaves straining, and I want to tell them to stop.

A patch of sunlight reaches the floor, and my cat purrs loudly and unforgivably in it's warmth. Sitting at the edge of my bed, there are hushed footsteps down the hallway, a door softly shuts, the silence is broken.

My throat tightens, and I shrink away from the light. To be unseen and unheard here is to be safe. There are five ghosts in this house, and I am one of them.

I know I'm destined

for great deeds, however, first --


I've to finish school.

the nightmares keep
me up at night
almost every night
in March

i get to relive
the trauma
over and over
that month

i awake feeling
my chest tight
stomach turning
counterclockwise

my mind focused
on that first night
why it all happened
what did i do wrong

i was just a child
i remind myself
as i *****

i hope one day
i like March again
like i did
when i was 6 years old

From little dollies,
To sitting in trollies.
Sitting beneath trees,
In the summer breeze.
Not a care I felt,
Nor a worry to feel.
Just me and my friends,
Imaginary or real.
The delight of innocence,
In the simpler days,

As I ponder back to the simpler ways.

all my past
      imposes on my breath today

i enter a grand mosaic public building
        and on goes my medical face mask
i join the back of the queue with my documents in one hand
            and my numbered butcher ticket
                          in the other
i admire the mosaics
               a jarring tide of art against the bureaucratic purpose
                     of these rooms
gauzed in with own product exhaust
       all my past  is attending    
exhumed
  patted  into my breath
    baiting remembrance with unsubtle notes
for example :
   integrated spittings of 'drum' tobacco (i quit a decade ago)
horning catches of cologne every boy used as a teen
seasonal scents  unweaned from deep in my system
(some reigned in from the different countries
                                                    i lived in or visited)
then i am frisked back to infancy   with breast milk and rusks
it's all there    a basking flippancy
all there in musk about my face
  one fragrance after another

it's an honest relief
     to host an alternative to my 'old man' breath
           but odd and concerning
something of the brain ?

Sneaking silently,

as part of a secret plan --


and it will end well.