It's dark and smoky here, as things will be for a few months more before they lay down anti-smoking laws that aim to make us better, stronger, smarter, and more like the cleaner class of people.
My family? My family's never been all that clean. My father's parents come from the country, from the ground, from growing and holding and keeping things. Their hands got dirty and they ingested bacteria and smoke and meat that "they" will tell you can kill you, but that my family knows can only make you stronger. They've never met around marble tables to discuss how best to control populations or prisons or time itself. They just lived, and kept their noses out of other people's lives. They know that some day, all things end, but not today. Not today.
My mother's family comes from poverty that taste's of dirt in your mouth, from North Hill and the sand in your eye. Man-boys in schools wearing anger on their sleeves with all the attitude but none of the hope. We've been from the bottom to the top, to the end of polite things.
We've never been clean, and if we've any mission in life, it's how best to be dirty. My parents know how best to be dirty.
As I said, it's dark and dirty here, in this bar. My father's ordered food. Clams, pasta, and bits of chicken stripped down to best hide its origins. We're talking about life and truth, other things too. Mostly, we're talking about me. Mostly, this is how I'd like to spend the rest of my life. My father that will listen to me, hear me, and know me. My father that I can see as you do gods, who sees me as one.
I see the best of myself reflected off the solid lids of his eyeballs. His fragility is so carefully cornered and covered, all in his monumental effort to build for me the best life I could have lived. His life for us, his energy for us, his fears for us. He'd show no weakness if men in suits came to drag him to the floor, so long as he knew his family was safe and protected, cared for. I see all of this in my eyes when I look into mirrors, but still too hidden and weak to boldly thrust itself out into the world.
He tells me, like a whispered secret, that I was never meant for the normal things anyway. That the more I tried to fit in, have the family and the doors opened, I would find that the family chased away and the doors had closed. He suggests, kindly, that I was meant for something different...that I was to embrace that with my arms wrapped tight around my past but with my eyes set firmly on the future.
"Pick a direction and love it" he tells me, with other words. With his words.
"If you want a family, make money and be settled. But don't want a family just because you think you're supposed to" he suggest to me. He does his startled little pretend gasps of surprise that lends any and every moment the pilot-fire of hope and humor. His words are a million, his sounds are all different. His meanings are always the same.
"Everything will be ok my friend. Breath. Everything will be ok."
I believe him, every time he says it.
My father wraps his fingers around his glass, his arms pulled up over the table the way you'd imagine myths hold themselves over the mind's of men. To be this firm! To know this strength! What am I but the boy who chases the beauty of his father?
Penned up in codes and nuance, truth is just that thing you find when you're too tired to argue anymore. Choked behind the smoke in cloudy bars, men sit with their sons and offer advice and love. So we hope. So we wish.
Alas, not everyone is as lucky as me.
My family? My family's never been all that clean. My father's parents come from the country, from the ground, from growing and holding and keeping things. Their hands got dirty and they ingested bacteria and smoke and meat that "they" will tell you can kill you, but that my family knows can only make you stronger. They've never met around marble tables to discuss how best to control populations or prisons or time itself. They just lived, and kept their noses out of other people's lives. They know that some day, all things end, but not today. Not today.
My mother's family comes from poverty that taste's of dirt in your mouth, from North Hill and the sand in your eye. Man-boys in schools wearing anger on their sleeves with all the attitude but none of the hope. We've been from the bottom to the top, to the end of polite things.
We've never been clean, and if we've any mission in life, it's how best to be dirty. My parents know how best to be dirty.
As I said, it's dark and dirty here, in this bar. My father's ordered food. Clams, pasta, and bits of chicken stripped down to best hide its origins. We're talking about life and truth, other things too. Mostly, we're talking about me. Mostly, this is how I'd like to spend the rest of my life. My father that will listen to me, hear me, and know me. My father that I can see as you do gods, who sees me as one.
I see the best of myself reflected off the solid lids of his eyeballs. His fragility is so carefully cornered and covered, all in his monumental effort to build for me the best life I could have lived. His life for us, his energy for us, his fears for us. He'd show no weakness if men in suits came to drag him to the floor, so long as he knew his family was safe and protected, cared for. I see all of this in my eyes when I look into mirrors, but still too hidden and weak to boldly thrust itself out into the world.
He tells me, like a whispered secret, that I was never meant for the normal things anyway. That the more I tried to fit in, have the family and the doors opened, I would find that the family chased away and the doors had closed. He suggests, kindly, that I was meant for something different...that I was to embrace that with my arms wrapped tight around my past but with my eyes set firmly on the future.
"Pick a direction and love it" he tells me, with other words. With his words.
"If you want a family, make money and be settled. But don't want a family just because you think you're supposed to" he suggest to me. He does his startled little pretend gasps of surprise that lends any and every moment the pilot-fire of hope and humor. His words are a million, his sounds are all different. His meanings are always the same.
"Everything will be ok my friend. Breath. Everything will be ok."
I believe him, every time he says it.
My father wraps his fingers around his glass, his arms pulled up over the table the way you'd imagine myths hold themselves over the mind's of men. To be this firm! To know this strength! What am I but the boy who chases the beauty of his father?
Penned up in codes and nuance, truth is just that thing you find when you're too tired to argue anymore. Choked behind the smoke in cloudy bars, men sit with their sons and offer advice and love. So we hope. So we wish.
Alas, not everyone is as lucky as me.
poetwords lucky to have an inspiring dad like that