tried to clean your grave
again today. i miss you.
i was only three.

he blames you, you know,
for something you said to him
when he was sixteen:

"make her come back home;
don't come back until you do.
go get your mother."

he didn't talk back.
"you didn't do that back then."
1983.

instead, he broke down
thinking you abandoned him
just like that woman.

i know you loved him.
i know you were a good man.
something ****** you up.

whatever it was,
it was speaking through you then,
that unholy ghost.

he never heard me,
just beliefs to argue down
when i was that age.

i absolve you both
though i struggle to do so.
christe eleison.