Memory of my Father

by Shane   May 12, 2015


The day you sent me a friend request on facebook
My heart raced as I stared at your name
Accept, decline
Your last name was not mine

I have only heard stories
Stories like a fairytale that couldn't be finished
Because you weren't around long enough to be a completion of my life

Stories that my mother only dread the day that she would have to say them out loud
The way they made you in my head
The way they talked about you
I still don't know if they were right

It's been 3 years
3 years since I pushed that accept button for you to become my social media so called "friend" but you
You are nothing more than, less than an acquaintance

We talked for a year
That year you raised my hopes up and as much as I said I wouldn't let that happen
You got the best of me

I should have known
I should have known that you would leave again like you did before
You have been nothing but a stranger to me

You come in and out of my life like its a revolving door that only you control
I've given up
Given up the chance to get to know the real you
But do I even want to?

I hadn't heard from you for a year
You sent me a message on facebook asking me to come visit you
But again...
Do I even want to?

I know that you're gonna leave again
I know that we're gonna talk for a while then you will disappear like a ghost
You will be a memory
But really...what memory do I even have?

0


Did You Like This Poem?

Latest Comments

  • 8 years ago

    by Once an Angel

    Thank you for writing about this experience - as it is one I have less experience about, I felt an opportunity to learn from and try to hold your experience. I relate it to people who have walked in and out of my life, and wonder if/where I have done the same. But I understand this poem is so much more than that - this is a relationship about someone who, by birth, should have been by your side, and has been, at best, a fleeting stranger/acquaintance. I worked with teenage girls for a long time, who often claimed they were "adults". I smiled at them, and told them they were not adults until they had to start dealing with adult problems. I have no idea how old you are. I bring up the adult problems idea because I felt your poem embodies that loss of innocence where child problems become adult ones in that your strong desire for a father had to become and has become a question about the fallibility of your father as a man. It is situation that has no easy answer, no 'right' way to go. As I have progressed into my twenties I feel like adult decisions are colored grey, because the world has lost it's black and whiteness. Thank you for this poem.