A Letter Regarding Old Daddy Issues

Dad,



This isn't about you,
humbling yourself, mingling
with the common folk just long 
enough to give a shit,

nor is this about me,
preaching closure like it's 
a tired sermon that someone
finally put out to pasture

...this is about us:

how you became 
a weathered old man 
with his brittle 
cross to bear,

how, even though 
you left me with little
more than a song and a frayed
heartstring, plucked 

one too many times,

I still entertained some
strange notion that you cared
and that I was just one lashing
away from winning you back;

as if I were holding out hope, 
until hope itself
turned grody with 
a feint veil of decay.



Sincerely,

your patient son