My Tarnished Heart

Digging through the jewelry
Box
My fingers meet with cold silver
I pull out the small tarnished heart.
Open it, and the memory comes...

...I'm eleven, sitting on the living room floor, I have my model horses in their shoebox trailer, Barbie is driving the G.I. Joe jeep, things are good, lights flash across the wall, someone pulling in the drive, it's the poh-leese he says, that's how he says it, poh-leese, and I'm too young, too young to understand that the world isn't all sunshine and roses and now my mom is home, saying those words, the word DEAD sticking out like a bum thumb, that dumb drunk bastard killed him, he was supposed to be his friend, but he killed him and I wonder who will teach me to drive, who will walk me down the aisle, just a bunch of shitty cliches but hey isn't life just one big cliche and stuff like this happens to Other people, not We people and I stare at those three tiny words next to a tiny picture, three words that I will never hear my dad say again...

I love you.