My Father's Son

My father’s son

As I sit here shivering in the cold all alone in the dark on a floor made

of dirt and I wonder to myself 

if it is going to be my unchangeable destiny to become 

my father’s son, so full of anger and disgust for not

 turning out how he wanted me to be, for in his eyes I

 am nothing more than a total failure who could never 

get it right, always shaking his head when I come into

 his sight telling my mother to ask me a question while 

he is standing right there in front of me like I never existed what in the hell did he do this time then wallking away 

making me feel so little like I just committed some 

heinous crime against humanity for just being born,

 causing me to hate my life, so then I try to find a different

way to escape trying everything I can so that I did not 

have to feel the pain now I just want to get high to forget

 the crappy life I have lived always making the wrong 

choices, no matter how hard I tried to pick the right ones, 

so now I would rather light up the pipe, rolling it between 

my fingers are like I am playing dice I mean I am

gambling with my life anyway, watching all of my

 dreams that I ever had being destroyed as I watch 

the reflection of my pitiful self against the backdrop of 

all the rising smoke while drowning in an ocean of deep 

regret and sorrow telling myself just tonight it will be the 

last time I swear I will quit tomorrow, but I never do 

because I am only lying to myself I mean to tell the truth

 I am an addict living proof of a disease, one with no cure 

I am always screaming for help but am  never sure if it will 

ever come, just as I go numb, so afraid that I will succumb 

one day to my demons from whom I am continually 

running from hiding in the dark abyss of the rising sun, 

hating me, myself and I try to always remember in my 

fucked up mind, never to forgive whom I have finally 

become like it was fate for being destined to be what I 

have always been in my pitiful wasted and pathetic life 

in which I live every day waking up in the morning looking

 in the mirror at the man that I now am and whom my

 father said I would become no matter how hard I tried 

otherwise, I am my father’s son.

Poet Richard M Knittle Jr.

A Poet’s Journey

Texas Poet Laureate Nominee 2016-2022