Lost Pt.1, 2025
Acrylic on canvas
14” x 18”
Acrylic on canvas
14” x 18”
While tears burn right through our hearts
Family is a sight lost too often
Without them life becomes like a coffin
It doesn't have to be this way I know
If only we all choose to grow
Letting go of what's been said
Lest we unravel like a thread
For when departing leaves one only unwound
It’s family that will bring us home found
I snuck around the side of the house after being corralled out back along with the other kids away from the fighting. My heart was heaving, gagging on pain. How? How? How could family be so cruel to one another?
Gasping from all the sobbing, I blindly climbed the weathered fence, splinters embedding themselves into my hands and knees. Out on the street Dad and Joey were yelling, threatening to tear each other apart. Gathering all the air I had left in my lungs, I screamed bloody murder, “STOP FIGHTING, YOU LOVE EACH OTHER.”
Pause. One second. Two seconds.
Break.
Joey and his wife jumped onto their motorcycles and rode off down the street. Fourteen years ago - that was the last time I saw my brother. It all happened so fast, yet each excruciating moment became seared into my brain to be replayed countless times.
The blue dragon hangs its head low, streaks of red and purple (anger) running down its length, conveying the sadness I felt that day. My brother was a soldier in the Army - Green Beret - the Roman chariot symbolizing that. The leaves abandon their branches just as our family forgot one another that day - scattered, decaying, lost.
Have you been lost to someone else?
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