it's been an age since I've been here - now;
there's a long slice of clay-minded toddler sleeping fitfully against my leg
there's an older version of us staring out from the duel mirrors in the morning
somehow we got old, the meet at 20 thing seems a long-distance joke -
do those thin beautiful people have any idea how good they have it?
I've lived back here long enough for this country to drain me of hope, to
extinguish the quiet, personal joy I used to feel in my work -
and make it oil slick with doubt and festering ideas about being owed
some form of respect, as if the product of my entire education was a burning
need to have more and more badges...
I cant say it's been easy - being swallowed into 'dad' when I was only just me again.
What they don't tell you as they hand that mewling bundle of joy straight into your heart is that you are
forever and always compelled to compare, internally, eternally - yourself as 'Dad' to your Dad as Father.
Every bump, every 'What?!' chopped out of clenched jaws is an bat-echo wingbeat of him, stalking through you son's childhood, your ghost at his feast...
How to exorcise that is a project of a deep inner calm that eludes me - you can't fix yourself on no sleep and tendril-debt and a hard tumour of hatred for the life you let yourself lose.
You've only contempt for yourself. Even amongst the joy, even amongst the triumph - there it is...
what did you give up boy? what did you give up?