Fifteen years old.
He welcomed
A small glass bottle.
Perfectly brim filled.
The blue sticker reads:
E&J;
VSOP.
Ernest & Julio
Very superior old pale.
Or even,
More accurately described as
Evil jab to
A healthy liver to
Visciously, yet slowly, strike
A life from the earth.
Because it's an
Odious poison.
He started a family young.
But with 3 kids,
2 baby mamas
1 kid on the way
And no job,
Well no dependent, legal, or for sure job;
Living was difficult.
He consumed the
Liquid venom
From the glass bottle
Like it was the air he breathed.
He drunk it
When he woke up in the morning.
He slept with it.
He drunk it
With his dinner.
He spent days
Without food
Just to devour
The ****** liquid.
He reeked of
The awful stench
Of a few shared 40s
And 1 lonely E&J.;
He abandoned his children.
He traded his daughters' childhoods
For reclusive evenings
With only him, the stars and a bottle.
Occasionally,
He'd be in a isolated corner.
With a shadeless lamp
Laying on it's side.
Taking a sip every time
He thought of an event
He'd miss in each kid's life.
Taking a sip every time
A cockroach crawled across his foot.
Taking a sip every time
He realized he let another person down.
Taking a sip every time
He thought of a
Shoulda - Coulda - Woulda.
Taking a sip
And taking another sip
And yet another until
The whole 40oz were gone.
Only because the warm liquid
Was the only thing
That soothed the pain.
That placated the misery.
That stopped all the bad
And left room
For all the possible good.
But the high only lasted
Just a little while.
Then he'd cry himself to sleep
Because he realized
He was truly forsaken.
He didn't have family.
He didn't have friends.
Not even a trick
On the corner can help.
Who do you turn to
When someone told you: Jesus
And someone else told you: Allah?
Where do you go
When you overwelcome your stay everywhere?
How do you know
You've overdone your rumspringa?
When is juvenile rebellion compete?
He could never answer these questions.
He could never
Find the root of his issues,
So he created more just from bad habit.
And when I was just 2 years old,
I lost my father to E&J.;
Où t'es, papaoutai
Like Strome said
Where are you daddy where are you?
The worst disaster in a kid's life.
Stronger than a nor-easter.
More tenacious than
Katrina or Sandy.
No one to
Dust me off
After I fell off my bike.
No one to
Defend me in the park
When bullies stalk on the little guys.
No one to
Teach a young lady true love.
A shovel,
To dig a black hole
In the space of my heart
To **** up all the pain
But never be filled
Without the affiliation
Of a father's affection.
Just to reassure you,
He's not dead,
His liver maybe,
But he's fine.
But,
He's, sadly,
No father of mine.
A mere ***** donner
Who laid with my mother
One night some time ago.
My love for him,
It will never die.
But the pleasure he finds
In a bottle,
Must decease,
Before he does.