Manic in the Family

In hindsight they all say
“we should have caught it”
“we should have seen it”
In the way he moved
A man
Whose mind was racing fast
He’s falling fast
“someone should have seen it”
That in his mumblin’ he
Was asking for help
the only way he knew how
A tortured soul
So kind but losing his mind
“we should have caught it”
But “mama didn’t” know
Two jobs only 60 min. tops
To catch her breath
Relied on him to be strong
And he was…
Dealing with all the hurt and confusion on his own
all while...
Making dinner
Fixing lunches
Bathing the young ones
Signing permission slips
“we should have caught it”
“we should have seen it”
Siblings repeat themselves in multiple
Phone conversations
Money sent and returned:
“No such person home”
“who they hell let him live alone?!”
Mama didn’t know…
Needed the oldest boy to be the man
But the man was only a boy
cleanin’ and ironin’ while his peers
Played with toys
“It wasn’t that he was just mean”
now the siblings come to realize
He was fighting a demon
That ate with him
Drank with him
Slept with him
Told him things that made him scream
Way more than a kids simple bad dream
“What was he doin’ on 54th?”
Runnin’
Like he been doing since he was young...
When it comes fast and
When it comes hard and
When it comes for him
With fiery eyes and smoke
Fuming from the nostrils
“we should have listened better”
“we should have forced ourselves to understand”
“Forced him to talk to us.”
Men that have been don’t talk about the gruesomeness of war -
Not WWII
Korea
Nam
Iraq
The battle of the mind and the heart and the soul is no different

Blood is filling buckets
And everyone’s getting hit

“We should have seen it”

They all in a room shakin’ they heads
Tryin’ hard to grasp the concept that big brother
Is dead.