My father

An inner urge.

Not the things you didn’t do. But what did you do?

How did you spend your life?

Both a child and a grown darkness.

I saw the child in you and I felt your darkness.

I lived through your darkness devouring our lives. Aggressively.

Frothing. Like when just before you died from it.

It tried to infect. To cover. To absorb. Like a blanket of black tar being swept around you. Just waiting to stick to your skin.

It didn’t, my father. Life hasn’t treated me as poorly, as it did you.

You did come back from the darkness. Assisted by high voltage and the good hearts of the paramedics.

You had been beyond and back.

I guess you didn’t see a tunnel of light. Or was it too bright for your damaged self?

The darkness remained.

It spoke to you that I wasn’t meant to have been anything other than a stain on the bedsheet. And you spoke of that to me.

It speaks to you of many things.

The darkness. The brutality.

The irresistible longing for the intoxication.

Lies and deceptions.

Manipulation.

Abandonment.

Irresponsibility.

Head sometimes above, head sometimes below.

A pit of black tar with a little sweet boy inside.