Carr

It torments me still.

How you

are not here

anymore.

Feels like air

sucked out

of lungs.

Like being

socked,

as if

by

brick

to

face.

How I am.......

still here.

And you found your way into there.

A trapdoor in that garage.

A hidden exit at the bottom

of that noose.

and it kills me.

I feel

I can see

things

I never witnessed;

yet can not bear.

The face on your mother

when she found you.

Swinging.

My own tattered sobs

pouring tears

that

would not stop.

Viewed

(as if)

from above

(and)

amidst

the familiar faces,

in a familiar church,

darkened

by that old,

familiar derision.

I longed to burn them then.

Set them aflame.

Watch them dance

till their last breath

spilled out

of their ugly mouths

in a final

scream.

Today

I pray

I would want that

no more.

Not after all of this;

All that I now have seen

and all that I now believe;

but I can't be sure.

(not really)

It would be easy to say:

That they never loved you.

Not like I did.

Never sat beneath a mesquite tree

upon folded knees

in the dusty wind.

A pack of filched camels

and couple of stolen beers

tucked in our lips

and our laps.

You

listening

as I read

short stories

in the Abilene sun.

Never burnt

with the rage

and contempt

that fueled us both

in those lonely years.

In that lonely place

Never hated

with such singular frustration;

the world and all its misery.

It would be comforting

to believe:

That the gathering of those faces

in that place

to this day

was not a blasphemy.

But these things

feel like lies.

And tonight,

in a crowded room,

surrounded by loved ones,

and filled with wonder.

I felt the rounded out hole

that's been left in my heart

since the day I took the call.

Put my finger through its center.

Edged its' tip around the scar

of the wound.

I try to fill it with your face

back lit

in west Texas sunlight.

All steel blue eyes

shining

with vast intelligence;

and all the rage

that comes with it.

Your corkscrew muscles

and crooked grin

cocked sideways

in a transcendent

Fuck You.

Because

both of us

always

knew

that when the folks

of Fairway Oaks

said

"stay away from that kid."

It was us they meant.

And

I don't care for the why.

It's irrelevant.

Or otherwise obvious.

I want to know where.

Where are you now?

And

If it ever got easier

for you

there?

And if they let you know

in that place,

wherever it is,

that you never left me

and I never left you

in the where,

I am

now.