Cinnamon Hockey

Child in hole cries out to his father,
“I’m still here with you…can you hear me?”
Smog lit lamp in darkness—worthless.
He hates his cage, a boy who waits.

“Father, heal me before you do this!”
Father ignores child, fucks up again.
Like a symphony of mortar,
the hole gets bigger the
more they try
to love.

Walls go up, paint them black.
Tangerines and heart attacks
pave the way for old mistakes
to repeat and feel the same.

Child points at wounds on chest,
scarred and jarred to bloody bits.
Father never looks within;
because it’s hard to look
at him.

14 years ago seems like a lifetime…

A house that you once loved and
now can’t drive by…

The past recedes yet calls out sometimes: 

Murmurs,
apples,
landmines.

Dylan James is an emerging writer and Ohio University alumnus based out of Columbus, Ohio. His fiction and poetry has appeared in Rivanna Review, Metonym Journal, Unstamatic Magazine, and more. Find him on Instagram @dylanthomasjames