The record scratches and I wake from a dream
The dream of lives unlived occupied by the life I live.
The invisible ink documenting the arguments I could never have.
My father tells me about his youth.
How he has seized this life through crumpled pieces of paper and a dim light
at his electrician’s desk.
His near-sightedness from all those nights,
clawing a life.
I would have liked a guitar for my birthday
Eighteenth, Seventeenth, Sixth.
I asked my father for a guitar one summer evening.
I cannot yell at him
for sacrificing everything he was
to give me everything I am.
I could name three things about him.
He watches dog videos,
and met my mother at a dance.
I know he likes drinking tea,
So then my father runs dry.
He can’t yell at me for seizing this
colorful life.
The life he has always dreamed of.
Nor can I at his
black and white.
His dull odyssey.
But there’s a part of me that wishes
that he could have lived a little damn more.
He listened to rock and roll in his youth.