couldn't sleep. revised this old poem about my dad. this is a very very very rough draft, but i felt like putting it out there, so...


Pops
On a Sunday
I came to you with crucifixes in my eyes
You counted rosary beads
By the tears that dropped onto your face
As I stood over your hospital bed
Waiting for someone to start a conversation

Instead
We just watch the winter football games
On a charcoal TV
Haunting the corner of a Kaiser Hospital room

The first quarter ends in silence

Your hands
Are fault lines of nervousness
Fingers fiddle rapidly
Trying to start a fire in your palms
With an IV tube as wood and
Sweat as lighter fluid
To add a little warmth
To the conversations
We hold frozen in our throats

The only sounds in the room are
The rustling of bandages
Covering the six incisions in your stomach
From an abdominal surgery
That leaves you weak
And me wishing
That hospital rooms came with
Pamphlets on how to repair
Father-son relationships

Your mother
Treated you as the abortion that got away
Comparing you to an older brother
Obsessed with fashion and muscles
Instead of the textbooks you studied fervently
And those he never opened

And your father
Dipped his leather belt in cold water
Before each lashing
So you could feel his power
And your nothingness
Stroke by stroke

Your parents
Never said “I Love You”
Once before they died

The belt buckle that branded your back
Is the black and blue roots
Of our family tree

So now
We sit in this hospital room
In silence
My hands gripping yours
The medical machinery keeping the beat of our hearts
Idly watching Football games
As a distraction
To all the things we want to say to each other
To all the "I Love You's" that were said out of habit
Instead of out of feeling
Of all the times you asked "what's wrong?"
And my silence pushed back your words
Solidified our distance
And kept us begging for a chance to be
Silent together
So that someone would take the first move and just
Talk

Here we are
Letting sports commentators do our dirty work
While we sit here trembling
Waiting to see who is going to erase
The abuse you absorbed
And the silence we create