You Remind Me of Our Father

You remind me of our father

I know that is something that you thought I would never say

Or it’s something you thought you would never hear

But it is true

You tried so hard to run from him that you didn’t stop to see that you were running straight towards him

Now here we are

Adults in control of our own lives and paths

And here you are

A grown man with daddy issues

You remind me of our father

The way he used religion as a gun held to my temple whenever things would go wrong by no fault of my own

Or the way his left eye would twitch the same way yours does

When your wife disagrees with you in public

A pool of saliva would gather in the corner of your mouth

As you grind your teeth to stop profanities from escaping

I watch her head sink into her chest,

Her heart sink into her stomach because she knows what will happen next

I don’t so I can only imagine

You remind me of our father

In the best and worst of ways

You love your children profusely

And they will never doubt that

But they will grow up and wonder

How you could be a fantastic father and a horrible husband?

How you could love them and hate their mother?

You will tell them you don’t hate your wife

You will tell yourself you don’t hate your wife

But you don’t love her and you never did

You resent her

Whilst she breaks her back attempting tirelessly to please you

You remind me of our father

The way your stomach smiles over your belt

As you sit down on the rocking chair in your courtyard
Drinking stout with your friends

When you laugh your stomach jumps quickly

For a brief moment everyone around you feels alive

It is the only time anyone sees you happy

But it doesn’t last long

One bottle of stout turns into a whole crate

Before the children have even gone off to bed

They can hear you — belligerent and loud

Talking about your sexual prowess

With women who are not their mother

Have you no shame?

You remind me of our father

And I am not scared to tell you that

Because you are not my father

And you do not scare me

My only fear is that you die like him

With a family that resembles you

But with nothing good to say about you

With a family that trembles at your memory

And prays each day to find the strength to forgive

With a family that would have loved to love you

Your Healing Will Come in Waves

Sometimes depression will wake you up

On the warmest of days

Just as you begin to enjoy the cool breeze against your skin

It will suddenly suffocate you

You will close your eyes and try to dissociate yourself from it

But it is inside of you

You have tried running from yourself before

Only to find more of yourself in all the wrong places

At the bottom of a wine glass

Next to a body that doesn’t love you

In a country far from your home

But no matter where you run it always catches up to you

Because you never run away from something — or someone — that abuses you

They can afford to pay rent to your memories each month

They have the patience to slowly eat you away

But you will heal — I’m sorry — I have to say that to remind you

Even when your bones literally ache

You must remember to come back home to yourself

Your healing will come in waves

Anxiety will find new ways to hurt you

You will find yourself triggered by the memory of your mother’s voice

You take extra care to wash her away with your favorite R&B

But you begin to resemble her more with each passing day

You promise yourself you won’t make the same mistakes

So you don’t

You make news ones

Fresh ones, you’re breaking the generational curse — so you think

Yet the outcomes are wildly the same

You will soon learn new words

Have the vocabulary to explain this strange and painful phenomena

You will write poetry and prose that break you

And someone will tell you they can relate to your work

You’ll cry out of anger because no one should know your pain

But at least you are not alone

Your healing will come in waves

Your therapist will tell you it’s a journey and not a destination

You don’t pay her to tell you that

You will begin to savor the good days

Only journaling those which you enjoy

Maybe that way when looking back the pain will be a distant memory

Maybe that way you can really pretend you were happy