Sinking Down

a man

I knew a man once.
He was a coward,
He was weak,
He was broken.

I loved that man.
He was eager,
He was happy,
He was better.

I hated that man.
He ruined me,
He burned me,
He buried me.

I pitied that man.
He was a drunk,
A pathetic addict,
A relapsing failure.

I knew a man once.
He was a father of three,
He was a husband,
He was a son.

He wasn't good,
He wasn't kind,
He wasn't happy,

He wasn't always cruel.

He held me when I broke and he tore me in two..

He was darkness and light and you could never tell which.

He would wake up in the morning and you would wonder which man he would be that day.

He brought me sweets, and taught me how to ride a bike..

He held me up on his shoulders and swung me high up into the air..

                            Up higher and higher! 

And then he crashed me back into the ground and shattered me until no amount of band aids or stitches could bind together my untraceable hurt.

He was my family and yet somehow he destroyed everything that my family ever truly was.

He found his happiness in a bottle instead of with us and he drank away the days as if otherwise they wouldn't count.

He rolled up a joint and filled it with his pain and smoked his worries away all the while piling on new ones.

                             He wasn't always cruel,

Sometimes he was wonderful.

But, sometimes I think I knew a man once.
And now I wonder if I ever truly knew him at all..