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I wish I could write a happy poem about my father.
But I don’t know how.
I think he is me,
More than I am him.
More than I think he’ll ever see.
I feel all the depths that he never speaks upon tongue.
The worlds he tucks into the corners of his cheeks-
The ache that falls out with every sigh.
I feel all of the loneliness he’s come to know,
With every empty night.
When nobody is around to catch the weight-
So we drink it instead.
Gulp it down,
Like a bitter medicine-
This nothingness.
This longing.
He doesn’t know,
How his blood running through my veins,
is felt with every pulse.
The way his voice changes with a single drink/
so does mine.
But it isn’t just the substance -
It’s something within the soul.
I felt every break of his heart until it was shattered completely,
And I lied on the floor for so many years-
Trying to make a mosaic of it all.
To turn the darkness to light/
Trying to piece it all together into something worth loving-
I tried so hard I drew blood.
I watched it, as it fell from my fingertips;
The same ones that cleaned up the mess, alone.
The same ones,
Turned callus and hard.
Now I can carry anything/
except the weight of my own pain-
But so can he.
Funny how you pass on so much strength,
In the same exact sense
that you pass along the pain.
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