100 ways to escape.

there's an old drunk who lives in a shack somewhere in that urban jungle of concrete and broken pasts. He sleeps on cardboard boxes, folded in half, lays his head on a pillow made of regrets and warped memories. he's got 4 children, born of him, born from him, who are much like him, but stronger & wiser. They bear the kind of wisdom that is gained from being thrown in the trenches at such a young age. An age when one should be thinking of toys and friends and school, instead they thought about new schools, 100 ways to escape and the difference between apartments and living under random relative's roofs & rules.
That old drunk who lives in a shack, carries his curse and his wounds in a crumpled up paperbag. he pours it into himself as a way to wash the past, forget the present and to spite the future.
That old drunk with the empty soul eyes, cut his heart out long ago when he left behind a young bride. memories of a girl climbing out the window to escape into a life of struggle and near breakthroughs, but the life she imagined, never did come true. she is now a ghost that walks through his dreams, while he falls into his soft and hazy sleep while every night will blur into eachother creating a string of days and nights that happened or never did, or maybe have; he can't remember.
This old man, drinking himself into uncertainty, until he'll be found at 4am staring up at the ceiling of his own self-made nightmare drained of all memory, wounds, plans and hope. Looking like a used up angel, a little boy lost. Sad. Desperate, but finally, relieved.

-Barrios