The Raccoon

Morbidity on the side of the road.
I was thinking about "him."
Wondering if I will ever stop thinking of him.
I knew he was present in my life somehow, today, and then I saw the raccoon.

His skull and jaw bone protruded from the rotting flesh.
Then I thought about all the people I know and we're all still alive.
I thought about the ones who weren't too and said a silent prayer.
Even people who we might consider forgotten must have at least one person who sees them in their mind's eye at times.

Or perhaps I was confusing myself with the dead.
I had a day last spring when I sincerely thought I had died and was nothing more than a ghost.
It was a delusion, but that's why they say delusions seem real, I really thought I had passed on.
The world isn't as fixed as we might think: I may be partially dead, which means he took me.

It's like the figure of a man wearing a mask as he pulls you into the back of a white unmarked van.
Is the giver allowed to give back?
Does the government wear a mask?
Do you like me?