Broke

some where along the line i seem to have lost me and i feel broken.
i feel like i have missed a step somewhere have completely fallen off the map that was my life. i dont know which way will lead me to were i was. do i want to go back to who i was? in a way yes i want to feel happy and whole again, but i dont think the pieces will ever fit back together the way they used to.. i replay my past few month especially july like if it was a movie. i see everythin like i were an actor in the movie and the cameraman.. i look and i see myself and i look out of my eyes and i see papa layin in that coffin. and i cant seem to stop replaying the first time i saw him.
that day was another hot summer day of nyc. you could smell the sweat of the asfalt and the aroma of the chinese food dinner that i was walkin torwards to get myself a small mail before headin to the funeral home. i walked back to the apartment with food in my hand looking around at the neighboorhood i dont remember anymore i felt when i was so young that it looks so different than what i remembered even the apartment building i grew up in looked so different. and i didnt remember the last time the sun didnt feel warm agaisnt my skin. i was terrified on to what was about to happen within 20 mins of this short walk.

i sat at this table with someone i couldnt stomach and still cant and with 4 children that didnt know who i was and why i was there in that apartment with them. life had taken a different look for me and i didnt want to see through those eyes. my chinese food was hot and honestly i didnt feel like eatin much so i took my food in to the kitchen into the microwave the second my dad saw this he said it was time. and well i wasnt ready for the time to have come. i looked at karla who was sittin in papas chair and was like ill see you there. so as im sittin the back of tia marianas car her with me in the backseat and my parents up front and johnny carpooling a few people to the funeral home and i started to look around to were we were driving to and things started to make sence we were right by my old house on etna st. i felt like i was 10 again and that caro my neighboor a few blocks down "walking distance" that gricy had just gotten married and was living in a basement off of ridgesomething or the other. by the time i came back to reality we had arrived to the funeral home and well i wasnt ready at all to go but i gather the lil strenght i had left and i walked in. we went all the way down to room were he was supposed to be but they hadnt brought him up yet. so they went to go get him i wanted to run i wanted to hide i wanted to be anywhere but there.

i took me a second but i decided that the best thing for me to do was to take a moment down stairs in the bathroom. the floor was marbel so every step i took made a different sound and sound that sounded like the place was haunted that i was the only walking and breathing thing there. i cant remember who i met someone in the bathroom that was related to me and it was female and she aksed are you ready. i think i smiled and i washed my hands took a few deep breaths and walked up the narrow stair case. to get to the room papa was in you had to walk by this other mans room and he was all alone and i felt bad for him and i wondered if that was what my grandfather would like. the place smelled cold and of sweat. it was so hot out side and it was so cold inside it was like a cold that wasnt like a good cold it was a scary cold.

when i walked up into the lobby there were 3 people i saw, joey, karla, and gabe. i ran to karlas side i needed her support so that i could walk through the door. joey came to my side and held my hand for second and i knw that if i didnt do it know i would never do it. i saw him and i lost it and i couldnt see, hear or even think of anyone else all i saw was him laying there i wanted to so bad to walk back out to have never seen what i had just seen.

that is the last memory the memory i cant seem to erase of my grandfather is that. i dont want it to be that.
i wanted to be the moments when i lived in DR so close to him that i would go visit him every weekend and bring him a bunt cake.
or the many times that we spent lookin at the cows or watchin him sleeping after his noon meal.
i cant seem to get that picture out of my mind....



i started writtin this on 1/2/07 since then i have gotten a tattoo with my grandfathers number and it has giving me a lil bit of a breather and i havent thought of him in that way which makes me feel a lot more at ease. and so now im done writting thank you for readin it ready does make me feel great, to get it all out.