Dads at home

Dads at home with the blinds shut

BBC news livingroom lamp

Stained T-shirt and pyjama bottoms hanging

The toilet seat is dirty and the oven’s seen a fire


He tells me about a long lost friend 


She’s been living in America where she made millions

Now she’s back to England to look after him - I’ll show you her text, he says 


I’m worried that there isn’t going to be a message - worried that he’ll be confused - but he finds it -

here you are-


The message is from my ex-wife

just saying hello


She’s found me, he smiles … after all this time


He’s on a loop - Speaking with clarity about family, past jobs and partners, but then a fog drops - like forgetting why you came in a room - And he goes back to the same delusion 


The slow dissolution of boundaries of his memory- time and faces bleed - mould is growing in the corners 


He tried to save a baby from a fire, but she died


He had to clear up the pieces of a suicide inconveniencing commutes, he says


An IRA bomb blew up a colleague.


They found her head of a roof.

Blond hair and blue eyes. 


His traumatic memories aren’t going anywhere 


I couldn’t drink the coffee he made 

The mugs aren’t clean 

He’s confused to find a mug with coffee in it and assumes it’s his. 


That distrustful assistant of ours -

Memory 


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