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It couldn't have been enough to say I was sorry

so I stayed in the car,

I turned the music up real loud-like

and sighed the eternal sigh, 

I was eight 

and tried to stay up late

every night watching premium cable

unable to decipher adult themes, 

my mom and dad would yell 

so loud that I could tell that perfect wasn't perfect enough,

They would smash memories 

with threats and regret later

but later always turned into never,

They stayed together for us

but we should have known better

that bitterness can creep up

lingering it'll stay stuck in your heart,

That same feeling must have been 

what drove them apart I wonder,

I was thirteen then

never caring about family

or who to trust 

cos god damnit I had my friends

and that felt like enough,

Just my luck 

that the past has a funny 

way of catching up to you,

My mom would dial me

itermittently between binges

or passout sessions and syringes,

My dad would let out pleas

not to have her call me anymore

but it was nice to have a voice

to fit the memory of a face

I was sixteen once

not knowing where to go

in this rat-like checkered cheeseless maze,

My Mom moved back close to home

cleaned up some and told me 

if I ever needed a place

I could stretch out my roots and grow,

She had found a guy that wasn't all there

but he could escape dark world

long enough to show me a fake face, 

So I left my Dad's

he tried to fight 

knowing what I could only learn,

telling me it's a mistake I'll make

but I never listen because my choices

aren't about being right 

they're about being my choices,

I moved in and things were chill 

I'd watch TV 

and play videos games until bed 

and hang with friends and just 

be a slightly average kid

until the drinking once again

assumed control,

It was a glass or two 

at first I saw

then more as if it was rehearsed

to start this shit show slow 

and grow into something worse,

I was still a kid 

though really not a child 

I knew what was going on

heard it sung about in songs

or talked about by pastors

droning on

Now though, first hand, 

I know whats going on,

They would fight scream scratch

blame each other 

for the dreams they never hatched,

Sloshing around the room 

with weak knees and hard stares

until the dizziness set in,

Maybe this is why we never had nice things

and two adults who never cared

about instilling the right dreams,

A glass here

a vase there

a broke TV

or a case of choking

but it was always chill 

when the morning comes,

They would laugh it off

and pretend it was nothing major

like I wasn't scared of the monsters

I had come to know at night

since the labor of drinking shined it's light

I was Nineteen 

Couch hopping 

and night time non stopping 

with friends who couldn't wait 

to just begin again, 

My step dad was gone 

and my mom was out the door,

"Is there any where you can go

Because you can't sleep here anymore"

Too much pride to ask my dad

and not enough sense 

to tell her why 

I'd rather die than see 

her stay with a loser 

who barely tries

but I couldn't tear myself

at the thought of her unhappy,

Packed my bags

to set out for stranger tides

I was twenty five I think

and I worked all day and night

tinkering around

trying not to fall into the same traps

and the same lines

I had seen run other ships aground,

I catch my mom here and there

through crying spells

personal hells

the trials and tribulations

about the life she made

or the guys who lied bold face,

I try to convey to her that life 

isn't supposed to be about other people

it's about the person you are inside

because when you make that person better

it'll attract all the right kinds of people by your side,

I've never conversated with stone

but you could imagine how I felt

slinging words at face without feeling

an emotionless husk of unyielding negativity,

she was hollow now

so dark to the touch,

When I got the call finally 

that she decided to take her own life

I wasn't surprised to say the least

but little did she know

she had shot us both,

She blew her brains out

in a bathroom tub

all drugged up 

drunken

full of despair

or maybe anger,

But I'm stronger for it happening

I guess

I tell myself

Me and my dad arrive at the coronors

The funeral home

or what have you,

to identify that body in the bag

so see the aftermath 

of too many regrets 

and cigarettes smoked in the dark,

and as he gets out

He leans in and says you ready?

I just sit inside the truck 

and turn the music up

real loud-like