Poem: Photographs From Markham Ontario by Orville Lloyd Douglas.

In this photograph,we are standing by the ocean and your arms are wrapped around me.

You softly say you love me.
I feel your hairy brown face against my smooth ebony skin.

I want to believe this is real love.

You press your teeth against my throat like a grizzly bear.
Being subtle was never your strength.
Our eyes are burning like a  smouldering fire.

The spirits are crashing into each other like an earthquake.
A passion explodes from our glances.
In the next picture, your fingers playfully caress against my essence.
The crashing waves of the sea splash on the horizon.

I want to hold on to this moment forever and  lock it in a vault.
As I stare closer at the picture  the residue is filth.
Your bloodshot marijuana eyes emanates through.
The comatose state of your reflection is prescient.

I cringe as you tell me you spend $300 dollars from every pay cheque purchasing happiness.
I guess contentment is smoking away your future.

In another photograph, the kisses takes on the persona of an alcoholic.

I taste the rum, the wine, and weed from your breath on my tender lips.

Your unsavory tongue penetrates my soul causing anxiety.

You hold the vodka bottle in your hand, as  you look  pathetic  like a hobo walking on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto.

The words from your mouth are slurred, chaotic, not cohesive.

Another series of shots you are vomiting on the cement as I stand horrified behind you.
Splashes of  flash bulbs emerge as  the ambulance arrives  while you  scream that you worry your parents might find out the truth.

Find out what though?

At the age of twenty seven shouldn’t your life be yours?
You drink the elixir of grief hoping to forget.

Is liquor really the cure?

Does one more drink really solve anything?
The poison flows down your esophagus into your heart.
At the hospital, in your slumber, I sit at 5 am  watching you , seething with disgust.

The nurse lectures that  the intravenous tubes must flow into your system.
The intoxication process doesn`t change anything though.
You wrap the blankets around your body living in some winter wonderland.

It was on this faithful Sunday morning I realized the lost soul of a man-child still exists.
Standing over your insipid body I want to smother the sheets over your face.
I pray to Jesus Christ hoping you will  die in your sleep.
I snap out of it, realizing this pain no longer thrives it was an illusion.

This is a faded memory, a snapshot in time that is now frozen.
I carefully pick up the album place it into a garbage bin and light a match.

I watch the flames extinguish your existence.