well, I have done everything right,
it was i who trimmed the corner fields,
and i who set the blinds at dawn,
i who stomached tears at night,
and never dared to make a sound,
i have wretched and heaved my sighs
into a silence bound ‘tween earth and sky,
and for what?
you, father, set into wretched sobs,
pronounced your griefs so deep and long
and held me close into your grasp
shaking fist held shirt in clasp
and i have suffered silently,
and now you smile in revery
your wayward son has returned,
with drunken stupor & stilted pose
into your arms he decomposed -
and what?!
you never give him reprimand?
your play with his filthy hair
and tell him, “son, your home is here?”
shallow people reconciled!
I’m out! Later! See you never!
As if I’d associate with less-than-beggars!
Why did I, who only did right
in God’s eyes and met your sights
am treated same as those who made mistakes?
Whose errors aught to rob him life?
All my fears, and all my shame,
all my shadows, all this blame,
in him engendered - and then?!
You accept him now and yet again?!