I’ve always wondered what having a father is like
I hear they’re strict, yet authoritative
Burly football-watchers
Comparing the screen stars to
their perished college abilities
Protective, too
“If you hurt my daughter, I’ll –”
That wasn’t you, Dad.

Your lifestyle was separate;
An accentuated, gritty metal barrier
Punctuated with torn photos
and late-night fifths
that inevitably shaped your insomnia
to a drunken smear of blood on the wall.

You were a Picasso clown,
Every entertainment the shade of some impending dusk
Indulging on an aqua sippee cup,
Trying to get me to smile again
Or yourself, if you could ever tell the difference.

You were your own master,
Your self-server, your best chef
Your mood swung slowly, month to month
It’s shameful, but
we enjoyed those evenings of solitude
Blissfully drinking, drawing your next invention
Or resting from such tiring routine:
sleep, whistle, stomp,
blasting your jazzy blues from the stereo
Or strumming your guitar for us all, listening in unison
after a fierce, cloudless day.

You were a philosopher,
Tasting nicotine on the back porch with the sunset
Exhaling smoke and knowledge
For me to absorb as I played at your feet.
A tempered and undignified freethinker,
Letting out obscenities when we shifted your prizes and other dust
Out of the way
And painted a rosy hue,
sickly sweet, over your faded blue walls
But it’s okay,
because when we moved out,
I made mine the same color.

You are alone,
Lying on the same dirty mattress
Above the same stained teal carpet
Listening for my voice when you call, and
Hearing the silence when I don’t
Just that –
Silence
like I felt from you.

You are my dad,
not my father
You won’t pay for college, but
Sometimes I almost wear
that blue turquoise leather of yours
And since we ran out of time,
I will always wonder:
How does it feel to have a father
Instead of a living thou-shalt-not?