My emotions around losing my father to the disease of addiction when I was eight years old. He died injecting Sterno into his veins.
A candle that flickered
then nearly dimmed
I’ve carried through the years
my heart, within.
In sorrow I stood
at my own heart’s door
watching you leave
cut to the core.
I’ve anguished long hours
into the night
struggling to recall
your face in my sight.
Oh, daddy of daddys,
where did you go?
How I’ve longed for your touch
I still love you so.
It never mattered
what you did to me
I’d have died for you daddy
couldn’t you see?
Without you my life
ceased to be
For you were the very
life force in me.
Some say it’s night terrors
I still struggle through . . .
in my dimly lit bed
I’m afraid of you.
It makes no sense
for you’re no longer here
Yet I’d give my right arm
to have you near.
You don’t understand
. . . . . . and neither do I
how I’d cry and cry.
I have few memories
to connect to the pain
But, sometimes mid nightmares
I cry again.
The agony of losing you
was worse you see
than anything you ever
did to me.
They say you were mean
beyond belief
you cut-out my heart
Oh, beloved thief.
I know so well
that when you attacked
it wasn’t YOU daddy
but that monkey on your back.
That monkey who stole
you away from me
so that the rest of my life
without you, I’d be.
After all these years daddy,
my aching for you goes on
for it still breaks my heart
that the monkey won.
I’d have slain the monkey for you
but you couldn’t see
when Patty was one
and I was just three.
There was no dark monster
I wouldn’t have fought
if back into your arms
we could’ve been brought.
But the dragons I know
you tried to slay
eventually won
and then took you away.
You’d entered a no man’s land
your drug induced hell
it stole the life from you
with it’s wicked spell.
You were not to be ours . . .
anymore . . .
To this little girl’s heart
I closed the door.
No more did I dare to love
for love equaled pain
I couldn’t let that ever
happen again.
In dreams of you daddy
I still call out your name
I still waken to find
a world of fatherless pain.
(Copyright 2014 by JC Fredlund) Copyright 2008 – 2014 by JC Fredlund (JC Eberhart, Past Pen Name): ©JC Fredlund and JC Fredlund’s Artistry Blog, 1974 – 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to JC Fredlund and the link to http://www.JCFredlund.wordpress.com blog is included with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.