[39] Night Father, Michael Green

You were always there, always night, hanging over the bed wishing and waiting for me to sleep so you could smother me. My mother still cries thinking back to all those years ago when you left her and shattered her glass like heart, a myriad of shards, misshapen, cutting and gashing our memories, until there isn’t a good memory left. I recreate you from family legend and often told lies, convincing myself that it was all a horrible dream that soon I will awake from. But, in the blackness of my childhood room, murderous shadows dance on the walls, dance the dance of lost hours playing catch in the front yard, being shown how to ride a bike, baiting a line; shadows that settle upon my chest, heavy and without remorse, heavy and without remorse.