Farewell House

Here I am, amongst your rubble, looking at your remains. It was a shame you had to go. For over a century you have housed my family, and for over a century have you been cared for by us. Long have you survived the natural disturbances such as hail, tornadoes, floods, and severe heat. So durable were you, even when it was your time to be laid to rest.

Though you were made of lumber and metal, I could almost feel a heart beating. You always seemed sick, though you never openly showed it. When you fell, I could’ve sworn I felt your heart stop and all life around pause in reverence. You breathed life, even though you most certainly held death. Now the spirits of the deceased stand at your side, though they always watched out for you. They as well as my family and I, held sorrow at seeing your form crumble beneath the steels jaws of another.

So much trash have you held, whether the trash of my fathers or of my forefathers. So to see you clean of such a mess was beautiful, but such a joy was short lived as your emptiness was filled with your own shell. Like watching a piece of paper be crumbled into a ball, you too were once perfect and had so many uses, but with age and interactions, you slowly lost your shape and fell into distress, guaranteed to never return to your previous glory.

Now you lay in a pile of your own self, glad yet pained, radiant yet lifeless. I worked on taking what you had left to offer, hoping that maybe through your sacrifice, another place may be as great as you. I tore all your metal, pulled you apart little by little. Though I did not wish for such an act, I was assigned to such a duty. It hurt me to see you in such a critical state, so I tried to lie to myself and say you were alright, though the elements forced my acceptance. You were falling to pieces, though you wished to remain together for eternity.

So I bid you farewell. I hate to see you go, but fate would have it no other way. You’ve done so much for me, though I have done relatively little for you. You have protected me, taught me, and made me stronger, while my only acts for you were vandalism and your preparations for death. I wish it could have turned out better, but this is for the best. You have grown old and weary from time and use for a century, and now I as well as my brothers proclaim you may now retire from your duty. Though it pains me to see your end, I’m glad I was here to see it. I wanted to originally watch your downfall, but now I admit that watching you go was painful. Though many may call me crazy or proclaim I’m insane, I know you had life. I wish they were some way to make things better, like some foreign heaven, but there is none. Yet now you are freed from all burdens and have only memories to partake in. So I bid farewell, and I’ll watch you disappear, whispering myself a poem that dare not be written on paper. An ode, that would make you seem worthier of honor than knight of medieval times. This is how I wish to remember you, as something greater than you truly may have been.

Arrivederci, amico mio, e riposa in pace.
(Goodbye my friend, and rest in peace)