My Father

Sun, 09/13/2015 - 22:17 -- emmy943

When I was little my father used to let me use his belly for a pillow. He was my rock in this tossing stream we call life, but just like any sedimentary he started to erode. Parts of himself were chipped away with each wave of sorrow. Piece after piece until there was barely a pebble left.

It's had watching someone slowly kill themself.

Hospital visit after hospital visit. Each time assuming this would be the last because daddy will start taking better care of himself.

Watching my mom hold back tears because she wants to stay strong for us but finally she breaks down because she doesn't want to be left alone by the man knowingly leaving her. She deserves better. She deserves better.She deserves better than to love a man who cuts right through her attempts to stitch this family together. He treats her like trash, but expects her to pick up his. We watch the life slowly fade from his eyes, being drowned in a sea of NASCAR races and football games. The less he takes his medicine the less we see of him.

He doesn't think about the affect he's having on our family. He can't see the remourse on our faces because he can no longer see. He can't be a rock because he can no longer stand on his own. The only evidence that he is still alive are the empty soda bottles on the floor and the throw up in the toilet.

I don't care about him. But I care about HIM. The father I see in the pictures. My hopes of the man he used to be since all I canr emember of him has been diabetes and empty apologies. He didn't teach me how to love, he only taught me how to hate. His childish acts of manipulation, his fight to dehumanize my mother until all that's left of her is her will to serve him. How am I supposed to call him my father when all I know of him are lists of things I never want my husband to be?

Despite all of thise, it's harder to lose him than I thought it would be. 

Poetry Slam: 
This poem is about: 
My family

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