nsfw

One of my earliest childhood memories is of Father
frothing at the mouth, spreadeagled on the side of the road,
eyes wide open, looked dead to me
even though I had no concept of death yet.
I was three years old and I remember this
because next year, you're going to school, they promised but that never happened.
Moving from one city to the next so we could write the chapter again
and again and again, never arriving at a climax, only catapulting
from one conflict to the next.
You see, our story is a cycle of Him, always on the verge of dying.
Mother walks calmly toward Him like a fisherman's boat heading straight for the storm.
She plunges a needle into the heart
and He gasps for air, momentarily
reaching for the sky with open fists, as the neighbourhood
looks the other way, across the street and into an alley,
a deadend, cornered into pretending
that they're not afraid, not disgusted, not here.
God, anywhere but here.
You see, there's nothing wrong with failure.
Because my Father committed suicide and He failed.