The big angry gorilla sits across me throwing banana peels at me every few moments. It is angry because I avoided him so long. I am pretty impressed actually because in such a small room he manages to take up so little of it, until the night, then he grows. The growing I don’t mind, it is the banana peels that bother me.

Sometimes I look at the impending homelessness as an opportunity. Homelessness is an opportunity to get away from an abusive father who to his credit has never physically hurt but has done something far worse. He gave a history that was not mine. He has stolen my child hood and refused to give back.  So in the end I gave it to him. It is a lifeless limp memory.  Completely unlike the gorilla.

I used to love the thrill of teaching. The excitement of a new country but now as each application is sent knowing the reply will be empty, sometimes with a best wish for the future endeavor, sometimes I don’t even bother to send it. And as the night goes the banana peels grow with the rejections the Gorilla smirking  wanting to play.

I pull the banana peel off my head and flick it towards the gorilla and while he deftly dodges it. However he not so deftly hits his head on the fridge door. The Gorilla grins it will be the last victory for me in the evening.

When I try to sleep is when the gorilla loves to play the most. He sits there reminding me how my life once was …he drops the snow globes with my dreams, or hopes, Or things I thought to be true and later I found out were no more real than the Gorilla.

I cover my head with my pillow trying to snuff out the noise, killing the lifeforce of the Gorrilla as he jumps around the room.

Sometimes it works, and nights like this it doesn’t.

And then I realize I don’t have a magician's top hat anymore and first the money will go then the housing will run out then I will be out on the street…people turning their heads away from me, people saying "that guy must be a druggie or too lazy to get a job".So I writea and so each word comes out hoping it won’t be ones I  waste because I know all too soon I won’t be able to share my words with anyone other than the Gorilla…and then I sleep and the Gorilla rests for another night.