Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Sins of the Father

Good evening, world. Here are a few of my thoughts on this cold Sunday night; I hope they aren't misplaced.


You think some doorway up above has closed? You think your path has just ended altogether, never mind the things you see beyond? We'll wander through the forest like the roots of its trees, branching and twisting and looking for water. Sick little ponds of sick little people, we are the scum that collects at the surface when the murk and the creatures within can't handle their own refuse. We are the embodiment of that refuse, that twisted fireside tale told over embers and bent barrels. There's a truth so deep that we can't help but be a part of it, can't resist. We're the walking teenage dead, stitched up and made pretty for the public. But we aren't pretty, not really. Look close enough and you can still see our seams, our makeup, the preparations of some hollow mortician. A practiced hand is what put us here, and a shaking hand is what will expose us. You can't even tell we're here until you look at us in the moonlight, the bar-light, the buzzing halogen bathroom light. Our halos consist of smoke from black lungs, whispering and circling in front of our eyes like planes arriving at the wrong airport. What better metaphor is there? We came out of the fog, out of the nowhere and the here. So look right at us, from your car or your window or the couch in front of your TV. We're the ones on the other side of the police tape, perpetually. There are so many of us, yet there is only one outcome. Endless branches converging onto a single root. We're what falls from your eye when you think of the things you could have been. Not the tear; that's just a superficial token. We're the thought behind it, in all of our mismatched idealism. You saw the world as flawed, so rather than fix it you looked right past. We are the thing you missed as your eyes scanned quickly by. We are the underwhelming details, small corners that were never painted over. This house is pretty but the trim gives the truth away. We sit in every corner you disregard, every terminally broken dream. You said I would like to, they said you could never, we said you should have tried. We are the product of that terrible abdication, we are the anchor that keeps this ship ashore. Our fingers reach up every now and again to try to claw at you...cold dead probes looking for a reason. We were never given that same easy out that you received through what was seen as common sense. For you, it was "Try not to remember", for us it was "Don't ever forget". We bore your mistakes through genes and blood, and in that sense became the lesson behind the need. The example made, the "such a shame". We are the moral of your story. The sins of the father, destroying the son.


Until next time, world...enjoy.