stranger with my face,
where have you been?
where have you gone?

can’t find the answers
watching myself shave
in the ***** mirror,
where blood that we both
once shared drips into
the sink from a cut
on my chin

do you remember when
you wanted to prove
that i wasn’t your son,
until you had to
pay for it?

because i do,
and laugh every time
i tell that story
like it doesn’t still hurt

as if i don’t look
exactly like you;

and a door closes,
but a window doesn’t open

after all, there are no exits
in this hallway constructed
from grief that slowly
curdles into hate

and i could drink about this,
but what’s the point?
this is a hurt that knows
how to swim

but i’d like to toast anyway,
so here’s three cheers
to absent fathers,
the boy he never wanted to see,
and the man he never gets to know