His blue eyes
stare at the wall
above my head-
he can't look at me.
Her brown eyes
start to water around the edges,
she is saddened with guilt,
but she feels so much better-
the burden and the weight
of a wasted decade
finally lifting off her chest.
He doesn't feel comfortable
talking about this,
but I like her attitude-
she doesn't treat me
like a little girl.
And I'm not,
I grew up long before I should have.
He tells me a story of my childhood,
when I hid mom's keys
in the hamper,
and saved my parents
from going to jail-
I never knew that before.
She tells me
moving out of California
was the best thing they ever did,
another year or so,
they would have wound up dead.
I agree,
and I tell them so-
explain my thoughts,
my feelings on their chosen lifestyle.
It feels right,
verbalizing what was always known,
but never spoken of-
the dirty little family secret.
But enough of that,
we put our dinner plates
in the dishwasher
and decide to go for dessert.
Walking from the car,
across the parking lot,
and toward the little cafe,
Dad puts his arm around my shoulder,
and tells me
that he is proud
of the young lady that I have become.
My eyes start to water,
but I blink the tears away-
he's never said anything like that before.
Author notes
I don't see my father very often. I'm just visiting with him for a few weeks. One night, after a long conversation about drugs and mistakes, he told me he was proud of me for the first time. I have always felt like he was disappointed in me.
A contest entry
- Fatherless Day by lively banter.
500 points, ended June 18, 2008, 15 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
-
"he's never said anything like that before." I know that feeling when parents come out with those kinds of things.
"I have always felt like he was disappointed in me." You don't say if you are disappointed in him! But it was great that you were able to tell both your parents how you felt about your childhood.
In some ways, this is so ordinary -- having dinner, going to the cafe. I like the contrast between that and other things like you putting the keys in the hamper.
Great write. I'm impressed.
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There are some truly incredible moments in this poem but it is held back by a rather lackluster use of odd punctuation. Reading it with all the dashes and commas and space choices truly hurts the piece on most levels instead of helping it. I didn’t necessarily find the he/she wording to be bothersome as much. However I did feel that you could have used those words more creatively. Possibly continuing the thoughts without being overly explanatory. Maybe you could find a way to show through imagery to create movement instead.
If you do decide to make any changed on this piece either IM me or kevin and we would be more than happy to return and take note of the changes.
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This is pretty good. But you kind of need some patience to enjoy it I think. It only truly is good after you read the entire thing and get to the last stanza. The he said/she said stanza beginnings became pretty repetitive and predictable for me, so I was happy to see that was not continued throughout the whole entire poem. I think you should tinker a bit with the did/dead lines in the fourth stanza. Those sounds are just too close together and don’t sound pretty. I don’t know how necessary the first line of stanza six is, I just think it gets in the way and it reads better without it. The first three lines in the next stanza are pretty wordy and again take a while for you to get to the point. I’d suggest trying to get to the meat of that stanza quicker. I feel that the title sort of sells this poem wrong. To me the title promises a more exciting poem than what’s actually here. You never exactly talked about drug addictions but I can sense it in the poem still though. I think I want to hear more about the drug stuff for some reason though haha. I am really happy your dad finally took the time to tell you he’s proud of you, and you’re very lucky for this moment. Thank you for the entry.
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