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Today my sister stopped by early.
Her, mom and I cleaned out my Dad's old room.
I hadn't gone in there since a few days after his death.
It was too much to deal with. Not the emotion (things still happen... I am brought to tears by a certain plant blooming, a reddish hair in my beard, in how my mother reacts when she meets an old friend in Wall-mart).
The idea of going through that room, where so much happened.
Where I felt like a slave
and also a son
Where Dad bled, peed, coughed, breathed, shat, smelled, called out in the night, cried, yelled, hit and kicked me
looked at me accusingly
dared me to get him out of bed
slapped me when I washed him
screamed NO
when I changed his diaper
went through sheet after sheet after sheet
[if this were a poem, I would have written
shat sheet shat sheet shat sheet]
where I prodded him with needles
gave him happy pills
fed him through a tube
where I learned so much
gave away more
had little effect
wasted and withered
THAT ROOM
Damn that room.

We removed everything.
Threw away tons
donated the rest.

Those things
these memories
are not him anymore
should never have been
him

He doesn't come to me. There are no murmurs in my dreams.
No instant rainbows in the sky.
No dogs barking at nothings in the night.
No mysterious sounds originating from nowhere.
No coincidental occurrences

He had been missing for so long
I don't think he could find the way back now.