thoughts

what happens if a baby is born in a house on a street in a town?
he grows up moves away
he lives and enjoys his life
but then returns in his old age to the city were he was born
only to find that it no longer stands
perhaps some business man sells the town to make a few dollars
or maybe whatever the town was thriving in stopped being productive
but whichever reason it was
this man now stands in the barren field of what once was his child hood
the beginnings of his legacy are destroyed
no one will see the street where he was born
he can have no pride or joy for the building that begat his life
he stands with a hat in his hands
maybe he has the wrong city
perhaps it exists but in another location
but no
he made sure that the directions were sound
is he crazy?
there are no pictures of his town
no one thought to capture it
no one thought it would one day disapear
what is he left with?
a memory?
where is it?
"where is it?" he cries
who will remember him
where is the older woman across the street who
remembers seeing him ride his bike up and down
running errands for his mother
the town is alive in his mind but it will die with him
forever forgotten with his death
he remembers
"i remember, here was the grocers and the corner store! i remember"
what if he is not skilled in the arts
what if he cannot draw or replicate the street he lived on?
it's as if it never was
he is tormented by the thought
"i am babylon"
stories will carry him on
children will create songs of his childhood escapades
artists will envision the street by his descriptions
writers will create stories about the stones of the foundations
there will be invented memories by the sympathizers
it is not real
none of it is real
he wishes to see one more time where it all began
where he started from
but he cannot see
he cannot go home
he must die with the knowledge that his memories
will not live on
no one can see the paint chipping from his kitchen wall
no one will feel the floor boards beneath their feet
he dies crumpled and wilted
a flower uprooted
he is incomplete