Like My Father by Jimmy Hale
I sit alone,
the bittersweet taste of coffee and stale cigarettes saturates my tastebuds,
my mind runs rampant with images from days past,
the good ‘ol days I thought to myself,
plunged into a whirlpool of emotions,
emotions that steer my impressionable mind into a limbo ruled by feelings of paranoia and anxiety.
I have to get out,
I NEED to situate my life.
Responsible like my father I said to myself.
A stern man, respectable, religious,
reguardless of the wrongs done to him throughout his life,
A loving husband with a meandering wife.
His children mostly grown up,
moving on in their lives,
two young daughters squabble over the television remote,
screaming, hollering over the right to gain their father’s attention.
Still stern, he sits and wonders where his life had gone,
and how things would’ve been different if he looked the other way that night in a dirty bar when he met my mother.
He thinks to himself,
I love my children,
I am strong,
Recalling a Beatles song from his youth,
“Oh Bla Di Oh Bla Da”
Life goes on bra he murmurs to himself.
He quietly shuts his Bible.
Stern, religious, devoted he sits…
That’s who I strive to be,
A man like my father,
But, I will not make the same mistakes.
His life will not be in vein.
I sit alone,
a stern look on my face.
I think of him and crack a smile.
My father would be proud.
