Gone

My Dad's Buick Roadmaster in front of his apartment.

Hard to fathom the darkness into which I have descended.

the accumulated grief of years, pent up, your heart implodes.

Never letting the tears come.

suppressing the sentiments with alcohol.

Living numbly, when I used to feel so much.

I am still crushed by the death of my father 

who expired on the dirty floor of a grease splattered kitchen.

in that dusty apartment,

the sink and counter filled with dirty dishes,

that was more then enough to look at,

I couldn't look at the body 

which was at the funeral home 

almost a week before we could get out there

and make the necessary arrangements.

then realizing I knew his loneliness and desperation well,

all the feelings of loss and grief. 

he lost everyone: his father, mother, brother, 

then his wife of twenty-some years,

that slow smoking suicide,

the emphysema, the murder of her son,

the slow overdose on her prescribed medication

because the doctor wouldn't sign off on someone to assist her.

And I, so filled with guilt and shame

that I could never reach out to him.

all i could do was sit on the couch drinking beer with him

and staring at the television. 

he hadn't smiled or laughed for years.

I watched his life recede 

while i was busy suffering my own loneliness and isolation.

I never developed a bond with others, 

the terror and abuse of childhood,

the rhesus monkey grasping a mother of chicken wire.

beaten,  abandoned 

for months at a time to a baby sitter, 

I saw the violence between my mother and father:

the arguments, the broken glass, the blood, the 50 stitches, 

my Dad and uncle hog tying my mother to take her to the mental hospital.

The last time I saw my father he was living in poverty, 

and was in debt at the end of each month 

living on canned food. 

because the bank fined him everyday for any over draft, 

$700 dollars in the hole every month.