Alone in the dark

[Leanne]

Great to see you back, Dale

I'm halfway through sorting breakfast so forgive my brevity, but I couldn't leave this without saying something.

.

I faced my demons one by one,
saw them for what they were
and banished them with mental magic
until I came face to face with my own mortality.

Death and his side-kick panic -- should Panic have a capital letter?
blew through my pop-pseudo-psychology -- nice
like an eighteen wheeler blows through summertime
mirages out on hwy 180 between Hobbs and Seagraves
where my dad would drive from home to work and back. -- great extension of the simile, launching into nostalgia
He worked at the chemical plant where the “Mexicans”
—sitting among waves of heat rising off concrete—
made a lunch of hot black coffee and jalapenos. -- not in the coffee I hope!

It wasn’t suppose to happen the way it did, -- supposed
she was suppose to be there to support him -- supposed to be... or should have been
when he had his first heart attack
and keep him alive until Denton Cooley
learned to do cardiopulmonary bypass surgery,
by stealing from the leg and giving to the heart. -- painful stanza with an ironic touch that's very well done

She wasn’t suppose to die
having a meaningless and unneeded hysterectomy. -- meaningless or unneeded, one or the other I'd say
I couldn’t help him, I was only five.
What did I know of the panic that gripped him every night
lying there alone trying to sleep and seeing his own death staring back.
Emotional raw meat wondering at every chest muscle twinge
if this was it, but was too John Wayne tough to ever admit being afraid. -- and the Duke could teach Chuck Norris a thing or two about toughness... pfft... Chuck Norris... anyway, good image

Today, I have an intimate relationship with death and panic, -- is "today" really needed?
waking up from an asthma attack in the dark of night
feeling like I am drowning and wondering
if I will ever catch my next breath.
Knowing makes me no more able to help him then,
than I am able to help myself now.

He needed her and her optimism,
the “everything’s going to be all right” mantra,
but she died out of time, drowning in her own fluids
due to an allergic reaction to magic ether juice. --the line would survive without "due to"
So instead of being reconciled by her to a better reality
we were just two small helpless boys alone in the dark,
trying to make it until daybreak
when there would be enough distractions
to allow us to escape—for awhile—
the darkness in our minds.

©2012 –Erthona

Really heavy stuff, Dale, and a rewarding read.