#4:\u00a0 Letter to my father<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dear Dad<\/p>\n
You would not like it here<\/p>\n
The world is so far removed from what you remember<\/p>\n
That you\u2019d be sad, your head dropped down like I had seen it<\/p>\n
Once or twice when you thought I didn\u2019t notice.<\/p>\n
I saw it when you talked about my sister, a realization of loss<\/p>\n
When you saw a harder side of her, a betrayal of your \u201csweet Sisi\u201d;<\/p>\n
I know you blamed yourself, even though you cast the cause elsewhere<\/p>\n
But I heard it in the tone of your voice, equal parts disbelief and resignation,<\/p>\n
And saw it in the angle of your back as you sat on one of those high stools<\/p>\n
In her house that we both hated,<\/p>\n
Your head retracting between your shoulders<\/p>\n
Into a flat stillness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what you\u2019d think about our country right now<\/p>\n
Having failed at everything we set out to protect.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d be mad as hell I think<\/p>\n
Like when you were in the hospital<\/p>\n
Three months in and out of the ICU before you died<\/p>\n
Attached like Frankenstein before he was unleashed<\/p>\n
And you smiled at me when I came in your room<\/p>\n
Holding up the tube for your colostomy bag,<\/p>\n
That you decided to yank out<\/p>\n
Full of defiance and fight.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I wish you were here, Dad<\/p>\n
So we could talk every day<\/p>\n
And you\u2019d let me go on and on about whatever was on my mind<\/p>\n
Mom tries but I can hear her weariness through the phone<\/p>\n
But she lovingly puts up with me, because she knows what I know,<\/p>\n
That you and I are the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
#4:\u00a0 Letter to my father Dear Dad You would not like it here The world is so far removed from what you remember That you\u2019d be sad, your head dropped down like I had seen it Once or twice when you thought I didn\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":959,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65074,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65057\/revisions\/65074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}