"Don’t Grow Up To Be Anything Like Your Father"

As I stand on the porch
Of the house in which I’ll live
The next year of my life,
I contemplate whether or not
I’m becoming an alcoholic.
If I’ll follow in the steps of my father,
Who used to be one.
I think back to that night,
Months ago,
When my mother described how,
Years ago,
When I was young
She’d almost left my father
Over alcohol.
How she was ready to pack up
With my sister and me
And leave California
To go to my grandparents for refuge
I imagine the scene she described:
Late nights on the weekend
In a relatively quiet San Diego neighborhood
When there would come the sound of a car
With music blasting loudly.
Even though this is all she told
Before breaking down into tears,
I picture what must have happened
When he got out of that car.
When he entered the house.
What were the words exchanged?
Where there arguments?
Was there violence?
I don’t know.
Even as she told me the little that she did,
I was drunk.
That was what had initiated the conversation.
I comforted her as best I could,
Not because of the drinking
But because of my inability to comfort others in their time of need.
If she only knew
That for over the last week
That I’d been drunk every night
What would she say,
Or think,
Of me