We Still Don't Talk

“A bottle of brandy on the countertop,

Drained until emotions rot-

Unable to stop until you're unable to walk-

I've watched you through a series of marital flops that

Begin and end in the space of each toxic, tonic drop, and 

I wonder what I could say to get through to you 

In a way that thirty years of tragically numbed experiences 

Could not.”

 

I had hope when you saw that poem, but your immediate thought

Was not, my God, I have to stop,

Was not, he's wrong, he's just too fraught,

With emotions spurred by a testosterone shot,

Was not, let's talk; this silence is good for naught.

No,

You asked for more silence. You asked I take it down.

You asked through your wife, because you were embarrassed not once, but twice.

And then you asked that I move halfway across town.

 

When I was a child, there was a cookbook I thought

Maybe you'd enjoy, so I suggested it be bought,

But the title included “For Dummies”, and you hissed and you scoffed.
Said that made you look like you didn't know how to cook.
And nothing could make you more distraught.

 

When I sat in your truck, with asthmatic phlegm in my throat,
I needed to spit, but had nowhere to do it,
So I opened a door, and your alarm went off.
And I sat in terror, knowing I had done it again,

Proven when you came back, to scream at me then,
That everyone was looking at you. Everyone thought you were an asshole.
I should have swallowed.
Or you could have rolled down a window.

 

Well now you're finally aware that insecurity begot paranoia,

Which in turn begot anger, which in turn begot

Pain, and sadness, and embarrassment- all things which you taught

Me was worse than losing a son, or daughter,

Or whatever I once was to you. You figured your lot in life

Was not your own doing, but your mother's- that when we fought,
I didn't understand how wrought you were because of her.

Perhaps I sought to become a man

Because my father couldn't stop being a child.

 

Because to be a man is to take responsibility,

To blame your actions and feelings not on the bottle you nursed,
But the bottle you choose to keep nursing.

And the one lesson to me that you brought:

Everything I do, is to avoid becoming you.

I've blocked you on my phone,

But I still want you to know,

You had the chance to shit;

Get off the pot.