I think that I feel lost
although I don’t have the right.

dad, it’s scary how you think of me.
I might just be a monster for part time,
but I found that all the walls I built
would simply leave me trapped.

I never learned
how to make someone feel loved.
I stumble all over myself
and I still won’t talk.

I love you, but hate
how I can’t get it out.
you don’t know what it’s like
when your words seem to drown
in the waves I never survived,
and the splashes that woke me at night—
like a ship that sailed
but never arrived.

but I’d mean it,
if I could show you my mind.

it would break even anchors to watch it:
your eyes slowly turning to stone.

and I admit I could have delayed this—
but maybe I was simply too young.

now I’m so cold,
but the air is no different,
and somehow there’s so much that’s missing.

as a monster in part time
I hope that some things pass me by.
but look at me, I waited,
I stayed, but it didn’t make anything right.

my daughter wants a lift from work
she pays me with frangipanes and pasties
and tubes of sour cream Pringles
(half eaten)
my wife sleeps on the sofa
annoyed
I woke her to say I'm nicking her car
'cause the air con works
(mine doesn't)
dad is in the capable hands of the
undertaker
who are looking after him in the meantime
while I get documents and certificates
to say he died
but none say I was there
none say how much I hurt INSIDE
or how hard it is to pick up the keys
and give my own daughter
a lift home
(from round the corner)
as though it were any other day

Grass too green,
sunlight ripped into jagged shards
by the fig tree’s fists of shadow.
Cupcakes bleeding frosting,
iced coffee sweating through paper cups.
We pretended it was a family.
We pretended.

Mum sat besides Dad,
like their bones remembered being joined.
Like his hands weren’t already holding someone else’s.
Like her vows weren’t chained to her job.

I opened my mouth.
The sugar rotted on my tongue.
Everything spoiled.
And I told them.

How I hunted for older hands.
How I thought I needed it.
How I wanted out when I saw the second man,
but the door was already locked.
How they used me.
How one carved into me,
split me open with steel,
left a word to rot inside my skin.

My own scars, I’ve loved.
They are mine,
my handwriting on my body.
But this one,
this one crawls.
It doesn’t heal,
it festers,
a maggot under the flesh,
hissing that I didn’t choose it.
A vandal’s tag on my skin.
An infection of me.

Dad’s face twisted, anger,
then collapse.
Mum’s face, vanished,
then drowned in tears.
The helpers, two statues,
faces carved like gravestones,
motionless as I gutted myself.

I clutched my ribs,
hugged myself,
but the scar pulsed,
thick, swollen,
as if it was laughing.
And no one reached for me.

The picnic died.
Flies feasted on icing,
ants drowned in coffee.
Mum and Dad pulled apart,
the rug split like torn flesh.
And me,
already in pieces,
my body a crime scene.

I dragged myself to the sun,
limped like the scar was a chain.
Collapsed.
Let the world blur.
Even in sleep,
I felt it twitch,
like a parasite feeding.  

When I woke,
a hand on my face.
Gentle. Slow.
Tracing me the way she once did
when I was a baby,
her fingers mapping me
like I was new to her again.

She avoided the carved word.
Her touch lingered on the scars I made myself,
as if she understood those belonged to me.
Her fingertips circled,
again and again,
like she was trying to write over the wound,
to overwrite the trespass,
to give me back the body I lost.

Mum beside me,
breathing clouds.
No words.
Just her arms,
finally closing around me.

And for one fragile moment,
the scar went still.
Not gone.
Never gone.
But almost forgotten.

my dad used to tell me about love
not to rush into it
to take your time
"be sure before you jump into it, son"

three years later
i see he wasn't just a hater
he speaks wise words
i should listen more often

i should do a lot of things
i shouldn't cling
i shouldn't cry
should i?
i should.

but i can't.

He walked to the gate while the soft summer wind stirred the oak,
and the sun reflectively smiled in the ruts on the road,
to greet his brother Ted who’d languidly move across
so that Vic could companionably lean and look at their cattle
grazing under the Breckland pine, and reflect.

He drove his tractor and tended his fields,
enjoying the changing seasons but moaned about fen blows,
and unexpected showers which slowed the combine,
good naturedly grumbling with other farmers
about the price of fat cattle, the return on wheat,
and how many potatoes are in a packet of crisps,
when at Bury market on a Wednesday.

He’d sit to the left of the door of the Cricket Club
contentedly watching Lakenheath bat,
and readily smiled when they’d hit a six,
bringing his big brown hands together
to join in the ripple of applause.

He’d bring his prince of a Yorkshire to where
his grandchildren drooled ready for turkey
with all the trimmings, and fresh vegetables,
hearing the microwave hum, cooking the pudding
whose brandy sauce bit, before heading the evening games,
candidly laying a domino, announcing to all concerned
"Another fifteen."

He’d talk about the little black pony he drove as a youth
over top Maiden Cross Hill to Brandon,
with a cart full of produce, hating the finicky woman
who always made him eager for home.

He hoed his little bit of garden, and happily cut a lettuce for his tea,
another to pop round a neighbours' with a hand full of beans,
and a third to lay with the sack of spuds waiting for his children.

He watched the Weakest Link, and commented
on the stupidity of students, and foolish woman
wishing to spend a thousand on a handbag, and reckoned that:

“If there were more men like brother George,
who was straight and true, the world would be a better place.”

He laid in bed in the moonlight, listening
to golden oldies of yesteryear, and Victor Palmer,
the father of five, my dear Father, a gentle giant of a man,
a man of the soil, dreamed of his garden…

the beast within
a ticking time bomb
never know when what you do is wrong

run and hide
close the blinds
the monster is out from under the bed

“look what you did”
“it’s all your fault”
it really wasn’t but that’s fine

i said i was sorry
“sorry doesn’t fix it”
“your apology was arrogant”
here we go again

the beast is out of its cage
someone else forgot to feed it
but the target is always me

doesn’t matter what you say
what you do
or try to prove

the beast is hungry
the monster is angry
the beast is scary
the monster is crashing
the beast is dad
the monster is him
it’s better when both are silent and hidden within

When Dad got Leukemia, he put up a fight.
He took chemo but lost his battle 12 years ago tonight.
After months of taking chemotherapy, he died.
He couldn't beat cancer even though he tried.
He died less than two hours before the fourteenth of July.
He was a good provider and that's something I can't deny.
When a person loses a parent, it's always sad.
Twelve years ago, I had to say goodbye to Dad.