’89

In a picture that dates back to 89’,
my mother holds me close, my brother as well.
She cradles us on top of a bar stool, points at the camera and smiles.

She thinks this is love.
But this is a disaster.
This is hatred, cultivating, soon to blossom into a putrid onion.
This is pain in seven years.
This is self-infliction in ten more years.
This is addiction.
This is debt.
This is me, wanting to die in my mid-twenties.

A careless moment stopping to take a picture, placing down drinks, setting aside conscience thought.
A moment forever captured in time with old Kodak film.

This moment, in 1989, will be my buying out agreement from life when I’ve grown tired of dragging my feet upon the dirt that was laid for me by the almighty lord himself.

God has given me precious life and glorious soil to walk upon,
but he has left me with a sick brain.

Photo: ©Richard DeFino All Rights Reserved