An Old Letter

An Old Letter
© Meesa Caudill


You could see the anguish in the handwriting,
shaking hands with each stroke of the pen.
You didn't have to look into his eyes
to see the pain he was in.
His despair is there on paper,
ink smudged from drops of tears
from the eyes the light disappeared from,
his soul weary for all those years.
I could tell from the letter he was exhausted,
so tired of putting up a fight.
All he needed was a glimmer of hope-
to have some faith, see the light.
I was the one he trusted to read it,
years before his light went out.
To read of his struggles and stresses,
to know his unselfishness without a doubt.
In some of the lines I see anger
and bitterness from a life unplanned.
Regret ate at his soul from the inside out-
he felt as if he were less of a man.
Even after reading it I tried to tell him
what a hero he was in my mind.
To him, he was a failure.
Misery the only thing he could find.
I blamed myself for taking away his youth-
my existence stole his dreams, his light.
I know his absence isn't my fault
because I had become his life.
His letter was written in darkness,
a man wanting so badly to be free.
But I know to this day he loved me so
because of the letter daddy wrote to me.

His Demons

He sees the demons
and tells us about them-
hanging on his shoulders
like Jack the Ripper's cloak.
They torture and mock him
and laugh in his face
because they know we can't see.
We can't stop questioning
whether he's lost his mind
or if he can really see
the dead,
walking among us,
tickling the backs of our necks,
and whispering evil
in our ears.
He sees them and hears them
and even calls them by name.
Jacob, Jedediah, Elizabeth...
how could such biblical names
be the root of such evil?
He says he's not crazy
and that they're really there.
He even shook their hands once.
Civil war soldiers
and Native American chiefs.
He says I'll inherit the curse
and he wants me to be prepared.
But how do you prep yourself
to go insane?