The House of My Soul - Bert Rock

I am not a whole man, a whole person,

something is missing,

has always been missing.

I should not know what I know.

No one should ever know it.

There is a kind of magic in the daily dying of the sun,

I have always been drawn to it,

To finding something I cannot define,

left behind in the carcass of the day.

My therapist asked me when it was that I first felt broken.

Immediately I thought of my father’s hands.

Before I was ten, I remember thinking when I looked at them,

that I would never live long enough to have hands as big as his.

I never believed I would survive another year. Deep down, I still don’t.

But I am trying.

When I hear people talk about their marriages,

their mortgages, their home repairs, their children,

I feel like a fraction of a person, a dysfunctional frame missing vital parts,

a caricature.

Somewhere in the house of my soul,

where light does not touch,

there is a space between the walls, a void.

It is the place where they live, the memories of what she did,

Of what they all did.

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Bert Rock lives in Arizona where he writes fantasy fiction, poetry, and children’s stories. He tries to channel his sadness, pain, love, and joy into his writing. Samples of his work can be seen at, www.bertrock.com.