Father

Father

Father you left me abruptly unknowingly feeling so unloved

We planned a funeral for weeks

Filled with people

It still left me quite unmoved

For months after I wanted to stay

Safe in my cocoon, contemplating

A woman, a womb who left us

Too soon

I felt your pain my whole childhood

If infected my thoughts

I was full of self doubt

While trying to live what you taught

How many times did we make each other feel not good enough?

Needing a foil and then a hero

When times got tough

Father I fear you and I

In some ways are the same

My words aim to kill

Or at the very least maim

My need for truth and justice

Keep me from peace with your estate

How could this insanity be your wish?

Punishment for entelechy pushing the innate?

Perhaps you’re in another dimension

Basking in the sun

Meanwhile your sons have me here feeling quite undone

I showed up to show love

In spite of betrayal

Even in your last days you were a delinquent

Going off the rails

But at the same time you were

A frail funny sad old man

Grasping desperately to hold on

To laws you could understand

Maybe the law of love

Isn’t material

Maybe you gave me the gift

Of believing in my potential

Maybe you figured you and I

Come from the school of hard knocks

Valuing most those things

For which we fervently fought

But I hoped for equity

I hoped for rest

I hoped your message for each of us

Would be we were all the best

Maybe in drunken delusions

You got somehow lost

Never stopping to contemplate

The emotional cost

For someone who hated drama

Your demons knew how to stir it up

Not in a happy way like Marley

It’s an eternal reverberant “What?!”

How are the rest of us

Supposed to feel?

Those of us who weren’t codependent

Always under heel

Those of us who left the nest

As any child should eventually do

Are left feeling less loved

More heart bruised

Your former criminal friend

Doesn’t know how to manage this estate

He does everything he can to hurt me

To show me how much he hates

I keep thinking one day

This nightmare will end

While feeling I loved a father

Who wasn’t a true friend

Still I miss you

More than I can measure

It’s still time to go to work

There is no leisure

Truly you did live your life your way

My little opinions never did

Have much sway

Hopefully your soul is somewhere

It can call home

Maybe this is all something you think

My mother would condone

It is what it is

At the end of each day

That’s the mantra of my trauma

No longer in your way