fatherly subtleties
You know you’ve had a good father,
when he allows you to be yourself
when he’s alive
and when he passes,
all you want to do is be like him.
-Wesam El dahabi
Today, I missed you.
Whilst others see you in their dreams,
They only see you whilst asleep.
I,
In every corner and crevice of my waking hour.
I find you in the hair on my forearms,
Did you know we share the same colour?
I feel it in the belly of my being,
This distant longing,
Of un-belonging,
Now I know why silence was the closest companion you had.
There’s much to be said,
About boys growing up,
With or without a picture of their father in front of them,
I don’t know if your passing will be my biggest growth spurt,
Or I will remained dwarfed here forever.
What I do know, is that forging an identity,
Is the most subtle art,
The softest paint stroke,
In a calligraphers brush.
Fathers, REAL FATHERS,
Know when to press hard,
And when it is too much.
And somehow,
All the bravado,
All the pomp and high horsed-ness of a son,
Becomes what it is,
Because of the fathers silent dismount.
Aloof he trots, viewing nothing but himself,
And there he is gently caressing the ear of your horse,
With silent whispers.
A father knows,
When to take the limelight away from their son,
But mostly they are the light,
And the son never realises until they’re blinded.
When your father is alive,
You fight with every ounce of you to be your own man,
To be so unique,
Different,
A better and upgraded version.
These all come with the notion of your arrogance attached,
That somehow your father isn’t your ideal.
When He passes away,
You will skirmish every inch of your existence,
Just to be as he was,
To feel him one more time.
You want nothing more than to feel his being,
By complete imitation of what he did, how he was,
So you can be who he was for your son.
W.E.
lonerloaner 