Together

You see me walking, alone in the rain.

The night engulfing me as tears of depression and anger are displayed.

You walk over to me, put your hand in mine, a silent promise, a silent wish, a silent prayer;

To hold her, to love her, to be there for her.

It’s around that time I realize,

Alone, I can accomplish nothing, but together “We” can do anything.

We can walk the ocean,

We can sail the sky,

We can do the impossible,

Don’t worry about running, together we can fly.

My heart and soul go out to you,

You are my angel, my light.

The one I can accomplish anything with,

The one to be there for me, to hold me safe in your arms at night.

And years later, I will whisper those words,

Even when you’re gone,

Even when the light that fills you has faded,

I know you will still be there to help me get along,

Because alone I can do nothing…

But together…

We can do anything.

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Ere the break of day, the torch burned in hand.

The fire, deep red, tainted with their head.

The ash carried the story of him, and

reminded her of what was left unsaid.

 

Their home, like torches, burned throughout the night.

Determined by her unspoken desire,

He went out to destroy her only blight,

His ire, was hotter than the fire.

 

Only her whim gave him cause to be,

Bringing him out of his deep depression.

All these acts committed, she cannot see,

He felt truly close to his obsession.

 

From his depressing past, he was stressed,

Until all his feelings were meshed.

Falling Back

September 19th, 2002 is the day my life changed. My son was born, and everything was different. When David’s tiny fingers wrapped around my big one, no more were the late nights at the office or the countless hours of unnecessary overtime. I’d known something was missing in my life for a long time, but I never imagined having a little baby boy would fill the void.
For a couple years I’d kind of been gone. Physically I was there, but mentally, not so much. When my dad died I checked out, leaving Marissa, my beautiful wife, alone. When I found out she was pregnant I could barely muster up even a smile. Losing Dad made it seem like nothing mattered anymore. He was always the one I fell back on no matter what happened or how much I had going on. He was a part of me, so without him, I thought there was no way for me to ever be whole again.
Marissa was there for me through all of it, but it didn’t matter. Talking to her was dull; Touching her lost it’s feeling. It’s not like I hated it, but no joy came with her love. There was nothing, no feeling. The only thing giving me any kind of stimulation was work. Succeeding there was all that gave me joy anymore, and I became addicted to it. I couldn’t stop overworking myself. Even when I was at home I only came out of my office to bring dinner back to it. I knew it was hurting my darling wife, I could see it in her eyes, but I couldn’t stop working.
Then David came. He saved us. There was a point to life again. I stopped working so much, and spent much more time with Marissa, my friends, but David especially. He became the center of my world. Without him, nothing else mattered.

September 19th, 2008 is the day things fell apart again.
It started out as David’s birthday did every year: with peanut butter banana pancakes. They were David’s favorite, and the look on his face when he smelled them from down the hall was worth everything in the world. All morning he carried on and on about how he was so excited to finally get to go to Chuck-E-Cheese. When he babbled on and I could see the happiness he felt, I couldn’t help but smile. Seeing him happy made me feel like I’d really come back from the dark place I was in years ago.
One of David’s friends ran up to me, asking if I’d seen David.
“I think he’s in the ball pit hun, that’s where I saw him last.”
“He’s not there or in the playground!” She pouted, “I wanted to give him his present!”
I followed her across the room, double checking both the ball pit and the playground, but she hadn’t been wrong.
“Has anybody seen David?” I called, but nobody had. I called Marissa over, both of us shouting his name, searching everywhere. We made announcements over the intercom, searched outside, we did everything. Hours later, there was still nothing.

David was gone.

September 19th, 2011 is the day I moved out. Constant police searches and amber alerts working for months to no avail, we almost gave up. There was always that little glimmer of hope when we got a call from the police or even a friend, but the more we got our hopes up, the more disappointed we were.
I fell back into my hole. I went back to secluding myself from everything, everyone, and worst of all Marissa. When she saw the first signs she tried to stop them, to help me through it. That should’ve helped me; I should’ve helped her as well. I wasn’t the only one David going missing affected, but I didn’t care about anyone else. Without David what was the point? Life lost it’s meaning, all parts of it seemed bleak. I couldn’t see a single thing that was worth it anymore.
Eventually the only thing between Marissa and I was the occasional exchanged glance as we passed each other in the house. She asked me to leave, which was probably best. I wasn’t doing anything but bringing her down. It should’ve hurt, but it didn’t. I didn’t feel anything. I continued living, if you could call it that, always hoping that David, my world, would come home.

Brothers

My mother was crying. My father was holding her in a gentle manner trying to calm her. The sight of my brother made her uneasy. As I looked around countless faces of our family members and our friends all had a blank countenance.  Closing the casket, they put him in his grave and slowly began to bury him. My mother in all her agony started to scream and yell, yet everyone was unperturbed. This continued on until my brother was gone. Everyone put their flowers atop his grave and started to leave one by one. Then there was me. I gazed upon the gray gravestone, thinking. What the hell did they do? Trying to keep my composure I walked away to my uncle’s car.

We drove for what seems like an eternity in silence. We approached our old red brick house. As I was about to leave the car my uncle said something, in an almost whisper.

“Try not to piss off your parents, you know how they feel about his death.”

“I know.” I whispered back

“We all loved him, you know that right.”

“Yea, I do”.

Walking in our house the sorrow and melancholy in the air seemed to choke me. I glanced at my parents. Anger shot throughout my body. I trudged upstairs to my room. I layed on my bed staring at the picture of me and Roman. Even though he was only a year older than me, he was as inspirational as someone like Martin Luther King Jr. or John F Kennedy.   He was always had a leader type presence, when news of his death came I couldn’t believe it. Part of me knew that something like this could of happened, because of what was happening to him. It angered me that the killer weren’t put away.  I put the picture back on my night stand. Why man, why didn’t you just….. I couldn’t think anymore. My anger and sadness have taken away all my energy. I feel asleep

I was awoken by the sound of someone calling me.

“Jacob, come downstairs please.”  Yelled my father from downstairs.

My teeth and fist clenched. I went downstairs to see that my parents were sitting at the dining table.

I went to grab food when my father said “Before you eat can we talk to you for a second?”

“Fine.”

I grabbed the farthest seat away from them.

“Look Jacob, I know they teach you this stuff all the time at health class, but we want to talk to you about it. We know Roman had some problems, and we know that he wasn’t always on top of it, but suicide is a selfish act.”

As the phrase came out of his mouth, my head got hot and my fist grew into a ball.

“Selfish act? Selfish act. If you guys would of just let Roman follow his dream he wouldn’t have done this!”

Tears started to stream down my eyes.

“Look Jacob just calm down, it wasn’t us Roman just listen, he choose to be an actor, that’s impractical,  if he want’s to make a living he should of don-“

I cut him off before the lies and the bull ran from his mouth.

“ There was nothing wrong with Roman, he never had any problems. If you guys didn’t pressure him and constantly mock him for his passion he would have never done this. It’s all your fault!”

“Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut Up!.” My mother was out of her seat yelling at me, her face redder  than blood. “It wasn’t our fault!.”

My father seeing that he couldn’t reason with me tried to calm my mother down again.

“No Jack we aren’t going to let our son disrespect us like this!.”

Angrily I started to yell “Me disrespect you? You made Roman kill himself, and you’re going to call me disrespectful?!.”

I could see my dad started to get angry.

“Look George,  Roman wasn’t being rational. All teenagers have crazy ideas, they don’t know what the real world is like, so stop yelling at your mother and sit down.”

“No.”

I got up from the table and walked away.

“Jacob!” Yelled my father in his anger tone.

I stopped in my tracks.

“Jacob get back here right now!”

His angry voice reminded me of all the times he put down my brother. I turned back and went to the table.

“Jacob, look I know you’re having a hard time but you can’t yell at your mother……”

His voice trailed off in my ears. I started blankly at him until he finished talking.

“Do you understand Jacob?”

“Yea.”

I went to my room. Seeing the dilemma my brother had faced I went upstairs and set my alarm and went to bed.

RING RING RING. 12:30am. I got up from my bed. Still wearing my suit, I walked downstairs.  As I walked through my house, the pictures on walls seemed to stare at me with expressions of fake happiness.  I walked out the front door. Looking both ways I crossed the street and continued walking.  I reached my destination. I Climbed the guard railings of the road, overlooking the river. I wondered whether my cowardice would kick in and I would stop. The only feeling I felt was a little sense of relief. Taking one last look at the sky, I jumped into the river’s cold embrace. 

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I received an email requesting that the common theme be changed. I have no problem with this, but I would like to make sure that this change is what everyone wants.

If you are interested in changing the theme from “fantasy” to “passion” please vote in the attached poll.