“He’s dead”
And I felt the worst possible thing one can feel
About another person when those words are uttered
Nothing
That man
Who isn’t even called “father” by his daughter
But a mere donor of bodily fluids
“So clever” we all laughed out of unease
Every time she said it. It wasn’t really that clever at all.
I felt I had long since forgiven him
As though anything like that could ever be forgiven
If not forgiveness then what?
Understanding? No, I could never understand
Self preservation with a cold heart, so unlike me, was all I had to offer
He lives on in my head, always
The two-bit actor wearing Brut cologne whose
Potent smelling leather boots I used to try on
Whose callus remover I nearly sliced my finger off with
He had head shots lying around which he signed for us girls
“Love Grandpa” and all that, given with a wink
They called him “Boomer” on set
For his towering height and seductive charm
A charm he used on the neighbor whose house we use to pass
Where he found an eventual second wife
And in my innocence I never understood
How he could spend that many hours somewhere not his home
It was a charm he used on desperate church women
Young girls every December dressed as Santa Claus
And an even younger granddaughter
Who adored him. Sitting on his lap.
Boomer was persuasive. Half of them didn’t believe me.
Not even grandma.
A family torn asudner
It seemed so catastrophic, yet was so, so utterly common
The good lord himself didn’t believe me either
At least according to those suited men
Who smelled of bad breath, old cologne and stale living
Family patriarchs
“Good men”!
Like Boomer
Like everyone thought he was anyway
In the lord’s name
They piously asked me
Every seedy detail, things I was too young to even know were “seedy”
Storing up god knows what thoughts for later
All his age, all to get to “the truth” you see
Boomer remained a member in good standing
And re-married that neighbor in the holiest of ways
I lived on, his tall shadow ever present as I fought injustices of every kind
All proxy wars, for the unjust battle I could never win
Being forever damned and despised for being a truth telling child
Of ten
At times I see his features living in my face
How can one not despise such things
Out of fear that a full one-quarter
Of the lowest of the low
Lives inside your veins?
A never ending gift of self loathing and fear
A bogeyman in your very blood cells
Constant mirrored reminders of one’s
Filthy heritage
That way we all lived
Until I got that call
“He’s dead”
Searching for a semblance of my forgiving, loving self
I felt nothing