It's sort of funny in the saddest way.
To find pieces of myself in a man that was never really a part of my life at all.
I wish I knew you well enough to have memories other than playing trivia at a table by the bar watching you stay well past last call.
Fighting with your wife over who would drive home.
Spending every other weekend you had with me staring at the bottom of empty bottles.
And slurring "I love you's" like I might believe them.
Isn't it all I ever wanted?
To be loved by you?
And does anything ever really change?
Can people really change?
You were sober for 5 years after you almost lost your life.
But now I keep waking up to drunk text messages.
Parallel to your drunken confessions in the middle of the night while six year old me tried to comfort you.
Biting my tongue and staring at the cieling fan so I wouldn't cry.
I don't have to hide the tears anymore because you're in another city and I won't ever tell you how bad you hurt me.
But Dad I keep letting men hurt me who tell me they love me at 2 am and I wish I didn't feel like it's because of you.
I don't know if this is poetry at all