sylvan

Right now i will do anything except this ...death...of an assignment.its the last one before finals,and i just cant seem to bite the bullet.i dont like the metallic taste of it.Usualy when this happens i find myself doing things i never usualy do,dishes,tidy messy room....HELLO guuuys


hope you are well,truly

my dear friend always says "procrastination is like masturbation,you only ever end up fucking yourself"

i cant help it.I work well under pressure,but not anymore,i swear the happy herb has sizzled the "concentration" or "faking motivation" part of my cerebrum.

ANYWAY
Today i am thinking about the soldiers in Afghanistan.America.The war,wars...and their endless repercussions.I feel for them,it,all of it,so as my father was a commander for a stupid border war here in South Africa,they didnt know what they were fighting for,and it fucked him up,landing up with serious PTSD,leaning towards drugs,instability,asylums.prisons...self-destruction and over-compensating for the "black" people he had to kill.

Overcompensating with all his time and money and above my mother and i..and so ended up not being able to be in my life.He was a great sensitive person,creative,artistic and not fit for war.He opened up the TRC Where soldiers opened up on what they were told to do and reconciled.




The last time i saw him alive was on TV in an interview.I never knew why he had to leave,my mom alwas said "he wants to see the world" i felt abandoned and hurt,ofcourse this was not the truth,it must have been hard for her...but in all my years growing up,when hed sum up the money to come visit and make me gifts out of scratch,like sunflowers out of tin cans and so forth- i was closed off,mean almost.Lokking back i still see the sadness in his eyes,the guilt,the regret,and regret.

When i was sixteen he didnt call,from wherever he was.i though he was dead ,phoned my mom in tears,daddy joe dodnt call (he always somehow did)...this is where my mom thought i was "old enogh" to know the truth,the entire story.When i found out i understood him and his ways entirely,and literaly -my souls sank,i was gutted-i denied the relationship with my father that i craved so much all my life.Just because i did not know this.Just because everyone failed to tell me.

Turns out he didnt call as he actualy came to my boarding school, to see me and give me a gift,but that is when my step dad gave him monet to go away and then police found him again,charged him for stealing a car,ids,escaping from an asylum and so forth.Again,out of my grasp.

Now that it ws finally open (seventeen) i beegged my mom to tell me more about him,stories,who he was,his history-he is my blood after all.I needed to fill that gap within me.She never said anyhing of worth,too vague,it must have hurt her so,she loved him.They were perfect.

id hold on to a sentence for years.revolve my world around it,this idea of this shadowed figure,this man i loved and felt sorry for,i needed to heal,forgive,stop the pain,my father-i tried to grow up to be like him -creative,loving nature,writing and so forth.. to try find HIM in the only ways i could.

eventualy i had it,and called all the prisons in this country,they said yes he is here,and that they will call back with him on the other line-they never did.

i then wrote him a letter.it took a year to write that letter.what to say,so little,too much.
i regret it being typed,clinical,lacking warmth-that he so needed from his biggest regret;fucking up a good life with his daughter (i read this in his diaries left in his jail cell- all he wanted was closure from me)

then one day,watching tv with my girlfriend,my mom walks in -the first time i ever saw her have more than an inkling of emotion to do with him,the way she said his name...z,we going to cape town daddy joe is sick.

YES!! i thought,now dont get me wrong,i didnt know the extent of it-i was just happy i was going to see my father,FINALLY,i couldnt wait to just hold his hand and say im sorry im sorry im so so sorry,i love you and i forgive you and when you get out im going to take you everywhere! show you my poetry,cook for you and get drunk with you haha...well,when we arrived

i met my entire blood family.........all who loved me but it hurt too much to see me because i am so like him,my dad dissapointed them all too.Still,they had great things to say about him,stories,funny,and i remember feeling so jealous that they had all this and so much was kept away from me,so much of him.at the same time they were speaking as if he was dead already.was i the only one who gave a fuck??

the next day,we get up early to bail him out on medical parol........but yes,and i knew it,i felt it coming-he had died already.Because everyone was too scared to sort the years of pain out quick enough,theyd rather get drunk and talk about it over a table.I felt the time ticking.

another dream/hope snatched away before i reach it, the most important one.

I remember collecting all his things from his cell,the other prioners respeced him-he hepled them write letters of peace to their families bacause they couldnt write.

The family seemed to give me the rights to everything,the funeral,his little bit of travellers things-THANKS GUYS,now i get pieces of my father.i knew why they did it,they felt guilty for "protecting" me,as now they saw they "protected" just too far.i say they were too comfortbl in their perfect little lives to deal with what was brushed under the carpet.i say they were

sorry

i couldnt find the letter i wrote him amongst his stuff-he didnt know i loved him,he didnt get that peace,and so i will never get that peace.
i remember going to the mortuary to see him,his cadaver
finaly,we meet
hello dad
i slipped my hand into his,so large,worked,i did get to say im sorry,but not the way we wanted
and who knows if he ever heard those words

i look so much like him,i feel like him

i took off my feather-pendant necklace to be burned with him,tears streaming i put it with him,because he was always my father of feather,flown away



"In biology"

sitting one school day,in Biology,in class
at my empty expectant desk of wood
placed to me,by others

an essay,now
required "the importance of genetics in society"
i must write
what i know
of this.

i look around the room;

i see the jarred snakes,the skulls,the specimens' bones
shells and feathers
all dead,we must learn from the dead

i see a family of pigeons
fluttering about the window sill
happy;order

and all i could write
was just what i needed to say
in the last
and only
letter to my father

of feather,flown away
im holding onto a mere feather
hands in empty pockets,forever,standing there
it cost,this loss
But i put it in my cap
because i know
that you are better

better than the this,and the that
and the turmoil
of weather,and whether
i ever lay eyes or words of hurt
upon you again,i still
would like to know...

if the biological beginning,of me
was in fact,for you

The End?
(75 words)



This is the song i played at his funeral




I didnt mean for this blog to turn out like this
sorry for rambling,guess these things just come out

guess i need a finish line?
-Tell the people you love that you love them,everyday
-finish fights/things
-be honest,straight up,first thing,always
-forgive,because forgiving others is like investing in the forgiveness you will need one day

<3