.

As a father he didn’t hate you,
.             he was kept from seeing you.

Pushed so far away that any attempt,
.             and its awkwardness,
was considered tyranny.

His name became like mud, ‘
.   though his only crime was acting on his insecurities;
.   left alone to filter his own anxieties.

He never wanted to leave you,
.                         tried his best to keep you,
 .             but fell on his knees because of his own weaknesses.

His past was never even,
.     because of that he struggled to be someone you could believe in.

That made knowing him difficult,
.     and boundaries hard to fault.

He failed to write, to speak, even sigh with you
.    because for most of his life,
.                                  his father had failed him too.

He hardly knew his mother,
.    became an outlaw in his late teens.
.    spoke little of either,
.              and kept his grief even closer.

He wasn’t perfect, masked his tears with pride,
.     the evidence of which is still not far from our eyes.
.           He let his brokenness break others,
yet, his torn behaviour never watered-down his broken love for you.

(©RL2017)

Artwork: Rembrandt, 1665, ‘Prodigal Son‘