Paternal Instincts

The bottle is glued to my hand
taping shut my mouth with its piss-flavored repression.
I look at my face reflected in my own arms
wrinkled by newness- traversed by age, tainted by genetics
such a difference between eyes almost exactly the same
painted the same hues, slightly smaller. Her eyes question me
full of innocence... how could I not love this child?
Unharmed by worldly wrongs, not a word whispered from lips
cloned from my own... but so unlike mine
covered by liquor and the taste of women.

I do not deserve this human being.
She needs a mother who can raise her with morality,
give her the faith that was stolen by my own mindless addictions,
show her the God that I could never let forgive me.

For forgiveness I would have to share all my misconducts
nights of sex with nameless faces,
burying myself deep in distraction
denying the picturesque memories of child-beaten wonderment.
Take this child out of my hands before I become my father
incarcerated literally and figuratively by the world...
his own lust for self-gratification.

They tried to take her away from me... her mother who did not want her
would not take care of her, lied in bed while I fed her bottles and changed diapers.
How could I let her take this child away from me? Could I stand to let her
be raised by an old woman and an old man who, in ten years,
will be unable to walk around?

Is it possible to love without wanting?
She loves unknowingly, crying out into the night;
I did not ask for her, her mother did not ask for her
so she screams, asking for the attention we defy.

So I drive her away from the one she lived inside of
more as a renter than an owner... is it possible to hate your own child?
She looks so much like me, but I pray to whatever may listen that she is different, that this child will learn to love.
And she sleeps...