Haunting me

The things I will never know about you
are why you loved me
and what your favorite movie is
and what you like to eat, because you always
let me choose.
I'll never know if you really loved her or if
she was just a distraction.
I know where your mother works
but not what she does
and I know nothing about your father
or your brothers or sister.
I don't know why you always made fun
of the music I love
Or what you wanted to do with your life
besides to please your parents
Or what you would have said if you had
ever met mine.
I never got to watch you stumble through
talking to my father
and helping my mother with the dishes
and never had you try to kiss me in front of the door where
we knew they were watching
I'll never know what it is like to go on out with you
at night
and not to be afraid.
And you'll never read the letters I wrote you
and I'll never know how you really felt about anything
I ever cared about
like religion or politics or feminism because we never bothered
talking about it.
All we ever seemed to do was break each other
and I'll never know why or how
or what was wrong with us.
But it haunts me sometimes.

Today

Writing about this is so hard.
I'd like to write about how the sun
is shining today
or how I feel a little better
than yesterday
Or how some of my fingers hurt
and I feel like my shirt is too wrinkly
and I'm supposed to be going to the
doctor
but I may skip it because I'm too tired
to drive out to Richmond on little to no sleep
and what I really want to do is
get my car registered
and then go get some Pho.
Yup, my standards are so high.
I also have a decent book
or two
or ten
to read so that makes me
happy.

But
I've been looking through
various and sundry areas of the internet
and I've notice
that there are prolific amounts of resources and
reading material for domestic violence victims and survivors
off all kinds
men abused by women
women abused by men
women abused by women
men abused by men
and children abused by parents.
however
there is very minimal help
for parents abused by their children.

Which is an odd situation,
I know
but what
about
them?
and
what
about their siblings?

Dear Dad

Ever since I was little
my dad used to give me the
first or last or middle
sip of his
coke or diet coke
or Dr. Pepper.
Or he'd get home and giving
me the last of his bottle of
whatever soda.
and I have always loved it.
And today when he got home
and I ran into him, because we
parked at the same time
and he smiled at me
gave me a hug
and gave me the last of his Dr.Pepper ten
and it made me remember
all the sodas we've shared.
And all the of the conversations
and it can be pretty fantastic
hanging out with my dad.
We both love animals
and video games
and hellboy
and constantine
and soda (coke for all the texans, hell yea and praise the lord)
and battlestar galactica
and sushi
and pianos
and guitars
and music
and Michelle Branch
and Taylor Swift
and Aunt Darlene
and we both have short tempers
and loud middle fingers when we drive
and we love trucks
and science fiction

I love you Dad