House

 
   A house crystallized in time. A house that poured in gold and green. Saturated golden, deeply golden, the golden fire almost dark red, as if the house was emanating, the source.

   Silent Saturday morning, golden and dusty. Simple, divine, silent rapture. Cartridge dust golden in the twilight. Trees and smog did not obstruct the view of the purple, crimson mountains. A spiritual divine silence, a divine presence. A pure, unobstructed, golden source.

   The house.

   How many times I wished it had burned down.

   Whatever happened to the VHS tapes I watched religiously, Nightmare before Christmas, The Sandlot.

   Sleepless nights before Disneyland.

   The apartment birthday party where my friend and I went out into Old Town to get Chinese food and they found us and freaked out and had us sent home and you were mad at me and hated my friend forever.

   Falling asleep near the Christmas tree, waiting for Santa. Where did that footage go?

   The track meets where it scorched—hot—red yellow and green and everyone was frenzied and screaming and burning: an apotheosis golden source of optimism.

   Tangerine and Cherry Big Sticks and Ice Cream sandwiches.

   Negligence, Vehicular homicide.

   Fantasies forgotten. Pain, heartbreak, yearning.

   In N Out Trucks, KFC, Shakey’s Pizza, every Friday

   The end of the year parties held against my will that made me hide

   Days in daycare, preschool, when I was force fed and vomited cheese.

   Hiding behind a door, hearing everything I’m not supposed to

   We’re going to drug test you

   Ostracization, subjugation,

               scared of the dark, cried over car seats

   Demonization

   My hero, faulty north star, blueprint

   Uprooted

   What was I even holding on to?

   Schizoid

   The warmth, the creaks, the presence in that house.

   The love, the violence, the pain in that house

   The loss in that house

   What a person is reduced to

 
   In death and in life and in death

 
   A performative shell

 
   A fridge once full

      now seemed bare and smelled horrible, much of the food old and rotting.

   A fridge that got more bizarre and grotesque as time went by,

     and every time he opened it he got sickened and felt a profound, crushing sadness.

 
                              Like discovering a hidden cancer.

 
   Every receptor fried

 
   An empty house

   —————

   Palatial space

 
   An empty world

 
   Without—you

 
   (My lifelong object of admiration)

 
   Remembering when

   There was a friction, a rhythm, a tenor,

   A world which you created

   And I occupied

 
   A warm, windy

   House

In life and in death—you are

   The prism that pours

In gold

 
   I sit in this empty house

   In your old empty room

   Trying to take up fractions of fractured space

   You once occupied—

***

(Featured image from Pexels)