It started with taking back
the laundry basket
with the pillow
and the toothbrush
and the overnight shirt,

where we talked
for just a second
before I walked away
feeling like some kind of zombie
with a spike through my head.

By the next day
there was this panic deal
happening
and the neurotic thinking
that maybe she'd search her heart
and come back around
like in the movies

because I love her,
and want her,
and don't want to be alone
again,

which in turn
spun back
to that 15 years ago time
when it was last
like this
and I felt the peace
of dreams.

That ended too,
though I stuck it out
a long long time,

just like my Dad
who's still at it
more than 60 years later.

Iâ€m not as good at this as him though,
and don't much have the stomach
for love affairs on the side

and huge fights
where nothing,
absolutely nothing,
gets figured out.

So now its a week later
and I'm laying in bed
with this crap churning up
like thick stew does
when you got a good heavy wooden spoon,

where huge chunks pop to the surface,
demanding further review,

thereby taking me all the way back
to when I was six
and one night had a moment of clarity
about what love meant
to these people
raising me,

with their hideous sneaky secrets
to which I was not privy.

We had two families, you know.
There was the one for all them,
and the one with room for me,
though the stuff they had to keep locked down
took so much effort,

there really wasn't
much left over
for the six year old kid
crying alone in his room
that night,

or the 13 year old
suicidal 8th grader
staying up till dawn
listening to the radio
and writing pornographic love stories
to the first girlfriend
he ever had
before we moved one state over
and never saw again,

or the 10th grader
tripping night after night,
watching the walls breathe,
and wondering when he'd ever
screw in enough courage
to just simply
leave.

I am still those people,
which probably explains
why it is
even the wonderful wonderful
women
I have had the privilege
of loving

did not stick around
to help unpack
this broken toy's
baggage.

So its no fucking wonder
I am alone again
at 50,
though this is the first time
I've done it
sober,

which means
there's no good choice
but to feel and think
and be
with this pain

and sometimes wonder
how it would have been,

had things
turned out
different.