Father Figures

She says,

“At least my dad didn’t beat me as much as his dad beat him.”,

I guess that’s what you’d call Victim Optimism,

we’re on a road,

somewhere east of Sydney,

the red dust kicked up by the van’s tires,

mixes with the reds of the sun setting in the clouds,

we’re headed to a man’s farm,

the man that she’d mentioned,

who’s father she’d said beat him,

worse than she had been beaten by him,

“Your dad used to beat you?”,

I ask,

my bare feet extended out the window,

catching the last rays of the setting sun,

“Yeah,

he was a violent drunk,

super sexist too,

he’d never let my brother cry even after he’d beat him.”,

I stay silent,

holding space for her to continue,

sometimes the best support we can give someone,

is presence in silence when they’re sharing personal secrets,

sure enough,

she continues,

ABC 136 ∆“Yeah,

my dad was kinda a gangsta,

he owned a massive cruise ship,

nicest one in Sydney,

very stubborn & occasionally violent,

he’d threaten to throw people overboard,

got a crooked attorney to make sure my mom,

got nothing in the divorce.”,

same old story I’d heard so many time before,

well minus the cruise ship,

why do so many of our parents,

end up in fckt up relationships?,

I know my step dad,

left my mother with nothing too,

nothing but a broken heart,

& a few traumatized kids myself,

don’t know what’s worse,

the alcohol itself,

or the man that drinks himself to death,

the death of himself along with the death of all his relationships,

don’t know what’s more abused,

the alcohol he drinks,

or the kids caught between,

that man & his personal frustrations,

my mind brings me back to our destination,

we’re headed to a farm,

way in the backa-bush of Australia,

where the man’s father we’re going to visit has just passed,

& I don’t know what I think about that,

ABC 137 ∆when a drunk abusive dad dies,

do we grieve or celebrate,

I guess we go to a place somewhere in-between,

something like an Emotional Purgatory,

kinda like how I feel every day,

somewhere between grief & celebration,

sometimes I think that it’s all worthless,

sometimes I think that it’s all priceless,

I write this feeling outcasted amongst outcasts,

I write this feeling alone amongst the lonely,

I write this because I know you feel the same way,

I write this so you know you’re not the only one that feels this way,

the sun,

is still setting in the distance & I want to take a photo of the moment,

but the roads too bumpy the screens too blurry & I soon realize,

that these moments are taken with memories not with cameras,

so I listen as she finishes,

then when we get to the house I start writing it all down,

& I finish this poem just as she finishes cooking dinner,

& I finish right here where we started talking about a father figure,

“At least my dad didn’t beat me as much as his dad beat him.”,

I guess that’s what you’d call Victim Optimism,

we’re on a road,

somewhere east of Sydney,

the red dust kicked up by the van’s tires,

mixes with the reds of the sun setting in the clouds…

∆ LaLux ∆

Somewhere In The Australian Outback