I always saw the flawed man, the regret and conflict in my father. That's why I don't know I'll ever be one. For anyone to look at me like that, like I did him, I couldn't take it. I'm not ready. Fuck a role model, I need one myself.
Not to say my Dad's a bad man or shitty father. Far from it. He's just bigger than me. Since I was a kid I've watched his forearms, wondered if I'll ever be as strong as him. Then he had surgery, prostate cancer and a catheter. Helped him change the bag. And all of a sudden, I'm the strong one. He walks, I run. His back's a mess, mine's fine.
Last night my timebomb of a best friend's wife gave birth to their first son. Five days older than me, today he's an old man. Papa Z, just like his before him, and I already see it. Guitar lessons, camping trips, maltov cocktails and napalm, mushrooms, Mickey's, cigarettes and weed, cocaine, computer games, ketamine, ecstasy and LSD, the kid's gonna have a blast. Only he'll do it all better. He's gonna write what we only hear when we're not listening, because he will be. He'll teach us what we're missing.
And I wanna learn. I wanna have a baby to raise me. I'm ready, if it weren't for jobs and money. It's unnatural to have to work to have a family. Or is it? Spend every day distracted so in the end I can look back and say it was all worth it. Kids are time machines. They're the future in action. I'm the past and that's the problem.
Dad first appeared in Having A Whiskey Coke With You, Vol. 1 Iss. 6, December 2011
Download a copy here: http://havingawhiskeycokewithyou.tumblr.com/
Not to say my Dad's a bad man or shitty father. Far from it. He's just bigger than me. Since I was a kid I've watched his forearms, wondered if I'll ever be as strong as him. Then he had surgery, prostate cancer and a catheter. Helped him change the bag. And all of a sudden, I'm the strong one. He walks, I run. His back's a mess, mine's fine.
Last night my timebomb of a best friend's wife gave birth to their first son. Five days older than me, today he's an old man. Papa Z, just like his before him, and I already see it. Guitar lessons, camping trips, maltov cocktails and napalm, mushrooms, Mickey's, cigarettes and weed, cocaine, computer games, ketamine, ecstasy and LSD, the kid's gonna have a blast. Only he'll do it all better. He's gonna write what we only hear when we're not listening, because he will be. He'll teach us what we're missing.
And I wanna learn. I wanna have a baby to raise me. I'm ready, if it weren't for jobs and money. It's unnatural to have to work to have a family. Or is it? Spend every day distracted so in the end I can look back and say it was all worth it. Kids are time machines. They're the future in action. I'm the past and that's the problem.
Dad first appeared in Having A Whiskey Coke With You, Vol. 1 Iss. 6, December 2011
Download a copy here: http://havingawhiskeycokewithyou.tumblr.com/
