For the words spilt,
so sharp,
You forked your tongue

Breath heavy with liquor,
And self-inflicted misery

Tremulous limbs,
Stilted walk

Running, stumbling, falling,
Splitting skin on solid concrete
What haunted your sober thoughts?

Two wives, six children and a lifetime
And no one ever knew you
Not your siblings
Not even your mother,
who searched for you decades after being told you were dead,
who cared for you until her last conscious thought

Living without living
Contemplating the world through hazy eyes

What is there to feel, but pity?
For the man who never learned from his mistakes,
Turning to the bottle to forget his woes
To forget his loneliness
Never realizing that the bottle caused him more woes
And left him alone

Dear dad,
I'm 18 years old,
and you've been out of my life for 17 years and 42 weeks of it.
You missed out on your little girl learning, and growing, and turning into a woman.
Someone else taught me how to ride a bike,
but I don't think that you mind missing something so important.
I don't think you mind missing recitals, and concerts and shows.
I don't think you'd even recognize me if you saw me on the street.
You don't deserve the title dad,
so for as long as I can remember, I've called you ***** donor.
Because that's all you ever given me (except for daddy issues and hereditary mental illness).
You don't deserve the title dad because you never taught me how I was supposed to be treated;
so I settled for too little, and longed to be loved.
But now, I don't even call you ***** donor,
I neglect to recognize your existance in my life,
because let's face it, you were never even a possibility.
I feel bad after all these years,
because you missed out on the joy of having a daughter,
and being a father.

Today was my greatest accomplishment,
An achievement round which I rally


And yet you're another absentee.


I drank from the pool of triumphs sweet,
Bitter as you would not share with me


For instead you're another absentee


Do not mistake their value is rare to me
But it seems an incomplete victory


Without you,
Absentee

Wake up to a pulsing morning.
Sooner than you know,
circles back to ******* Monday.
               Empty batteries.
               Empty call log.
               Empty stomach,
and ash-mouthed, empty-hearted anger
leaves its streaks on the walls
of the insides of the skull--
               it's a kitchen, that mind you got:
it's covered and crusted--well used I suppose--
but smells funny, needs dusted
               and swept
               and mopped
               and wiped down
               and shined up. Dress down
the absentees in your life--I'm sure you know how--
'til it circles back 'round--
               to breakfast,
               to Monday,
               to you.
             In your bed.
Fight the throb in your head and push back
on the sheets that still rush up to claim you--
slack jawed with maimed thoughts--though it's
late in the day.

Absent body, absent form.
Absent absolutely,
As if you were ne'er born.

Absent voice, absent deeds.
Absent frames,
Of histories ne'er seen.

Absent opinion, absent feeling.
Absent choice,
There's nothing left to be.

Absent, me.