Father's Journal

In assessing my own ambitions and goals for the journey ahead, sometimes

I wonder about my father in the back of my mind, how’s he doing??

Hope life has been merciful to him even if he’s not really all that merciful himself, doesn’t deter me from wondering how life has treated him thus far

In his mid fifties without any nearby soul in that vacant house of his just in the outskirts of Davis, the ghost of his old dog running around somewhat

I wonder if he still writes in poems in that legal pad of his.

Let’s be fair though, it was more than a decade when I remember seeing him in the comfort of his own bedroom,

writing in that blue legal pad his secrets

I wonder if he ever told it his full story as a way to make peace with all of the mistakes he’s made

and continues to make by icing any caring soul away from him

Wonder if he ever wrote his side of the story, a story I’ve always shut out and never really took the time to hear, but who knows if that’s the case?

He talks to his legal pad more than his only son.

Funny enough, I’m keeping a notebook

with bits of poetry stuck onto the pages.

I just recently started picking up on this habit not too long ago,

keeping poetry sparse between the digital pages in my computer,

hoping to put them together into a book as he should’ve done

with his legal pads full of ‘em

the scattered notes on my phone between pages of other ideas for other aspects of my life, sometimes personal journal entries

I’d take time to write in the physical one

even after a lengthy day’s work when I don’t feel like talking to anyone else

but I still need and want a place to keep my personal thoughts.

I guess that’s one thing my father and I really do have in common now more than ever.

Paper is both of our best friends when the world is so quick to judge,

but we always find a place of solace within the pages of our journals.

I have so many questions to ask such as why he did the things he did even if it doesn’t really matter now because I’m a full grown adult, for what??

We’ve both moved on with our lives in our own ways, in our own styles,

but sometimes I can’t help but to wonder what he told his legal pad in writing that he never told me… what was his side of the story?

I’ll probably never get a straight answer until the day he dies but until then,

I’m going to keep going how I’ve been going and trying my hardest to keep focused on these newer goals

laid out in front of me and engraved in my heart,

my old man is the same way so I guess it runs in the family.

I just hope he has a shred of decency to show up to my graduation that’s near to celebrate the accomplishment of his only son, late but worthy.

Notable regardless of the years prior to it.

Only time will tell on that one.