Sat out on your willow branch,
Smoking in a self rolled joint.
Voices were raging in your head,
I didn’t get the point.

4 Moosehead cans, at your feet.
I’d be sent to get 8 more.
They were hidden in your closet,
Behind the small faux door.

It wasn’t yet eleven,
But you were cross-fading quick.
Were you manic or depressive?
I didn’t get a pick.

You pleaded with the cosmos,
Tried to make me understand.
Divinity you don’t believe,
Was also called to hand.

Wailing was all your crying,
Salty tears watered this tree.
How many of those falling drops,
Were caused by men like me?

Raspy gasps of grasping breath,
Your knuckles were turning white.
Holding my hand through angry fear,
You squeezed with all your might.

Made a mom at just 16,
I, the echo of that pain.
Playing my role as therapist,
My efforts were in vain.

Hyper-Independence was,
Our one saving grace, no doubt.
We unable to care for us,
I tried to help you out.

Newly a teen my own self,
Trying hard to play adult.
You passing out from substances,
Would be the one result.

I look just like my father,
In your stupor, you would say.
I would change the way I look, mom,
If there was any way.

Mel and I were punishments,
You so truly did believe.
I wear my failings as your son,
To this day, on my sleeve.

Prostrated on sodden ground,
A small weeping broken heap.
I shouldered you another time,
And brought you home to sleep.

Check out: Melancholy Bitter

If you made it this far, as with my previous piece about my mother, we have a better relationship now. These were words younger me needed to get out.