I am disabled with a life long illness in such a way

So that it is barely visible. I cannot tell ignorant people what my illness is,

For fear that they will retort with abuse like ‘serial killer’, ‘retard’,’ rapist’.

So I am forced by and large to keep to myself, to miss all the fun times and to hope

That one day after death I shall truly be myself.

I feel that I did not make a good friend until I was 46 years old.

All my previous friends must have been vampires, out on the prowl

Seeking an in on a good bite of my life-forces before they screw me and dump me

And leave me feeling so low that if life was worth continuing

It would be done in such a way that I would never trust another.

46 years of life does not go past without collecting some mementos.

I had a chest of letters from my ex-vampire friends.

I wanted a military parade uniform with colours on the chest, but this was not so.

When you live for 46 years before making a true friend, it kind of discourages you from

Rekindling old ties with any old vampire friends.

There’s a whole lot of politics to consider in doing that

Such as is he after money, what part of never did he not understand, is he confused about children?

They think of all of those things and they refuse to come to agreement.

I felt I had an obligation to go back and reread the letters.

In an ideal world they should have been returned to the ones who wrote them.

But what were their real names? Where are they now? Did they send a toxic twin identity?

I tried and all I received was a warning from a J.P. – what one of the old vampires had become –

To save them and return them because they were history and identity together.

They also represented a previous 46 years passing of being lied to and given false hopes

Arising out of sympathy and stranger’s mockery. They contained trivia and one-upmanship.

I was poor for 44 years. Poor and driven like a dray horse. People mocked me.

My family died young and old and I received not

One word of a wish of any quality from these vampires.

So I drove the chest to a friend’s house, she has a fireplace,

And I burned them. It took 2 hours before her neighbourhood had

Tiny blackened handwritten papers falling down on it.

Don’t worry, I burned the letters which I had sent to them as well.

This means that they must have sent them back to me.

And my diaries and gift cards. And the short stories that were never published.

Fire beats fire, and fire is of the devil. So it is with my illness.

Now I have cleaned and cleared up the mental space in my mind for those

Fair weather friends to recede and for their blame to become quiet.

Who needs a history of rejection despite him having exemplary fitness and fortitude?

Who needs an identity of isolation by fascist sympathizers who lock strangers away?

Isolated from the ones I loved before I could even get a chance to be with them again

Before they were gone forever?

Who needs leering fake friends who gaslight using criminal labels?

Who needs relations with vampires? We all need letters, diaries and cards,

But not if the whole chest of them would have become the proof

That I had no friends, and it remained black and silent as an anchor in my basement

Unmentioned unwanted a box of neglected after-thoughts.