Monsters

A picture frame with a family inside,

Faded now, a life left behind.

He remembers how it was before,

When happy sounds had paraded these halls.

~*~

The clatter of ice breaks the silence

Of this empty house, too big for one.

A mausoleum, his tomb; but there is no rest

For this poor soul, damn by his own behest.

~*~

He tumbles through a looking glass,

Half asleep in half a glass

Of Jack and rocks and days long past,

And a misery he can never outlast.

~*~

He fights the monsters who haunt his dreams,

That fill these rooms with shadows and voices.

The liquor helps to drown the pain,

But the morning always comes again.

~*~

He wonders if it would have lasted,

They’d argued before, but never so wild.

He loved her, he knew, but he could never halt

That demon inside him – it was always his fault.

~*~

She took their boy and left the house.

He hugged his son, one last time.

They’d play in the garden when he returned;

The ball still sits by the back door.

~*~

He watched them drive away in the rain,

Tears in his eyes, face hiding his shame.

What did they talk about before,

When fighting was only a last resort?

~*~

He begs the monsters who darken his days,

For a second’s relief, a pause to this madness,

And the doubts that consume his waking hours;

Those questions that no one will ever answer.

~*~

It was gone midnight when the doorbell rang,

A uniformed man with his hat in his hands.

They did not suffer, the officer claimed.

The roads were wet – no one was to blame.

~*~

All of a sudden, they were but memories.

Her smile, her touch; his laugh, his joy.

Ceased to exist in a moment of violence,

Twisted metal and glass, a wreckage in the rain.

~*~

A year goes by, but he’s trapped in that instant,

When she turned her back, their boy at her side.

What he would give to call out her name,

Go after her and apologise, and ask her to stay.

~*~

He yields to the monsters who cradle his bones,

Submits to their will, surrenders his soul.

All he wants now is to see his family once more,

Put an end to this torture, and follow them out the door.