when people ask about my dad
i would say that i am him,
but i would need a bob and stache
and as admirable as he would be
still, i’d never say that he was me
up until i was eighteen? i see saw him in my anger
almost, always, only ever
a defeat
of better not retreat cause you can are better
shit
hit
time and time over
and over to know that i am better
but whether i’d still echo every swear word he knew
when he wasn’t around
is still a question
i refuse to review
now somedays when i smell him in other words
now of mine
i can’t decide
if i hate
how we are so alike or how i am only realizing this now
more
yet
i would still need
patience
spoken in a silence that one would mistaken for distance until one learns what true distance is
i would need more books
more secrets
and war stories
that’d leave me to need to be asked how i feel before i realize to tell
my dad, and me
we never ask
i never asked
but work and soccer
and heros
who perhaps also left
love in the photographs they’d ask a smile
and now we simply say i miss you
though it just feels the same
a shadow
of a shadow
my dad and me
my dad, and me