I’d like to forget the day i saw my dad cry. For the first time. Weeks before a hurricane that i didn’t see coming. His sobs where not like rain drops. But like winds storms. Murmuring and muttering, words like catastrophe, cant-breath, i-can’t-have-an-answer and cancer.
I’d like to forget the earth under my nails. Fist-full of dirt falling on a suit and a shirt. As if he'd ever wear a tie. And I wish I could forget the times I asked why or how did he die? Like I didn’t know cigarettes lead to this, like I hadn't seen his lungs burning, dropping lighters, papers turning.
I like forgetting
I was 7-8-9-10. I don’t remember when, I cried, my brother didn’t, and my mother’s face fades, silhouettes and expressions, exact dates and what the funeral mentions; in speeches and tomb stones. Disappear like when cheeks are dried and salted with no trace of once-tears. I remember he was a poet, he would hate to see his death worn in clothes of prose.
My memories rush away, people say sorry I don’t know what to say. I saw a man-a ghost-a shadow- die. And I saw my dad cry. I see rain storms washing away and we don’t know what was the last thing he could say before his lungs gave out, but I don’t think he said anything- before his lungs it was his mouth. His throat was coated in ashes and I hated to see how his coughs turned into thrashes. And I hated to see how he lost his mind in misplaced ash trays, lost lighters, and forgotten days.   
And he never did learn, I think he liked to see himself burn. Like how children watch colors of leaves turn. Like how he viewed being human as adjustable. Letting souls become combustible. And in the end he was cigarette buts on the street. And in the end he was smoke and steam and heat. And in the end he was heaving sobs and dead end jobs. Men smelling of tobacco breath, reeking of nicotine well into death.