A Letter To This Man

 

I don’t wanna grow to hate you, but I might

Trying to fight these thoughts running through my head at night

About how you were never there,

About how the whole dad thing, you didn’t do it right.

You cross my mind all the time,

But I don’t know what to think of you.

The FIRST time I remember seeing you..

2008,

Dallas Texas in the ICU

17 mm rifle round to the stomach,

Emergency surgery

Momma got the news and wasn’t sure if you’d make it

So we packed up, hit the road

Alabama to Texas

10 hours to make it.

She wanted me to see my father,

To see his face

Just in case God took you home that day.

When anyone asked what you looked like I’d have something to say.

************

(Standing outside of the ICU doorway…)

My first time seeing you since I can embrace it

A man I can remember, I’m about to face him.

Momma grabbed my hand and we stepped in the room….

It was silent,

Except for the machine that beeps.

My chest got heavy, now I can feel my heartbeat.

But I kept walking, moving my feet.

I didn’t know what to expect

As I was drawing close to the bed

I just know that Momma said you should’ve been dead.

There I was, 12 years old

Standing at the foot of your bed.

Looking down at you like, “Damn, so this is Ced?”

Observing all of the tubes,

Bandages wrapped around your head.

************

I remember you woke up and saw me standing there..

Now you’re crying, like you can't believe your eyes

But it's me,

First time seeing me since I was a toddler,

Around the age of three.

You didn’t think i’d be there for you,

Like you were never there for me.

You were induced,

And I was talking to you..

I told you “i love you” ,

Like I knew you this whole time.

Momma said

“Just talk to him baby, he can hear you.”

Then boom, I started crying

I was telling the truth man, I wasn’t lyin’

I was just confused about all these emotions

I had for a man that was never there.

After you got shot, we spent that whole next summer together,

Spending time with you, trying to build that relationship that I wanted,

But for some reason we never quite bonded.

************

I fell in love with all of the stories they told me about you when I was younger..

“ Boy your daddy was nice with rock”

“Best baller around here”

“He was nice, an all-around athlete”

“Hand him the sticks and a snare and he was killing beat”

But Ced, that’s about all I knew.

We used to talk on the phone,

You’d ask me how i’ve been?

My reply was “i’m great”

Just what you wanted to hear, I know that was fake.

But the truth be told,

You didn’t really wanna hear what was going on

On the other side of this phone..

How Momma was struggling, jumping from home to home.

How it all went south, Now my siblings are gone

How I just switched schools,

How it was never set in stone.

But i told you

“I’m great dad”, like nothing was wrong.

************

You weren’t around for my early days,

So you wouldn’t know that I was mentally matured way past my age

And that I was catching onto your lies and games,

On your deathbed you told me you’d change,

But that day never came

It’s too late for you to step up now,

I’m all grown up now.

How you claim to be a man, but you lie so much?

How you claim to be a man, but you had another plan

When I was born, you left my mom alone and torn.

You can’t say you cared about her, because that’s a lie.

If you did, then you’d at least try

To make it work for the sake of me

When you knocked her up she was only 13

Like, WHAT!

How could you,

Leave her alone,

Barely old enough to hold her own,

But you left her to raise me

All on her own.

Thankfully my Nana was there and took up the responsibility of caring for me

Because if she didn’t,

I don't know where i’d be

But I wanna thank you deeply,

For leaving me

Because if there’s one thing your absence taught me

It's to never turn my back and leave my family.

That’s what you did to us…

And i'll never leave my kids like you did me,

Trust.

This poem is about: 
Me
My family

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