I talked with my dad today
Words were exchanged, hanging in the air
Like smoke from when I was 12
And he asked me “You wanna hit this?”
I said no, I was so angry that I locked myself in the bathroom
I was so angry that I didn’t come out for hours
And I could only hear the echoes from the TV
That raised me so much better than him
 
I tried to look him in the eyes
But I couldn’t look past his bloated face
His extra chin sitting there, cumulating dust
Like the dust in my grandma’s house
When we all sat in the dark, on recliners
And old couches, in a valley dying for a good rain
Everyone was yelling at each other, and I just
Shook with tremors, I was just a tiny earthquake
Full of the quivers, ripe with abandonment
We laughed and talked of aching knees
And work woes and how we both hated driving
And how we are both afraid of heights
And how we both get cold when the air conditioner is on 68
 
I wanted to take a drive to the highest cliff in the desert
And just look down
 
We stared at the floor together
To celebrate the silence
Of course, the TV was on, but isn’t it always
He studied the texture of the carpet
While I studied how 15 years of
Getting beers with my small hands for him
Driving without seatbelts and Budweisers in cup holders
The stench of weed clinging to walls
Stepmoms and girlfriends and fights and broken coffee tables
I studied how everything came together
 
I looked at the man feet away
With his faded navy blue shirt
Ripped up jeans, messy black hair
I looked at pictures in my head of him holding me as a baby
A smile, a shaved head, and a beautiful youthfulness
 
I looked at him, and I saw myself
Something I never wanted to see
Something worse than the boogey man in the closet
That he used to scare away with words
I saw myself
 
And I’m a human
And he’s a human
And humans do what humans do