"Love & Hate"

Today is Fathers Day
Just another date
Forgive me if I'm not happy
Got other stuff on my plate.
In all honesty I made that up
I'm indifferent to it all
I never much loved him
Going back to when I was small.
A  bit of me always cared
But 'love' was a thing we rarely said
I spent most of my young life
Wishing he was dead. 
Yet when the moment came
I shed tears and cried
But only for the dad I never knew
The strange part of him that died.
I won't miss his demons
The gambling and the drunk
The way he treated my mum
He never lived like a monk.
He was never one to hit her
But in vodka a demon possessed
It broke her heart when he croaked it
Even if she could finally rest.
Hand on heart I never felt parental love
The way I played up
Didn't actually deserve it
When push comes to a shove.
Looking back I'm not angry
Just the way cards were dealt
And at least I wasn't beaten much
Not suffering with a belt.
I probably brought some of it on
Being the runt of the litter
I felt I was as to blame as much as them
No point in feeling bitter.
Would I change anything?
I'd rather not think that way
Just coping with the right now
Is how I keep my demons at bay.
I guess I wish we'd spoke more
Had the relationship we never had
But the way I grew up
Leaves me no more than sad.
Would it have been too much to ask
An occasional hug or kiss
The things ordinary folk take for granted
Sound like unattainable bliss.
Is it any wonder
When all is said and done
That I turned against them
And felt the unloved son?
You both wrecked my life
Making me the insecure person I am
The way you treated me and I reacted
Felt like none of us gave a damn.
You never taught me to love
I don't know how to hug and hold
To scared to even love myself
So I come across as cold.
As I reach the autumn of my life
I'm too far gone to change
It's something I've come to accept
Which you probably feel is strange.
It's the little things that keep me going
Sobriety, new grounds and rhyme
I've genuinely got no expectations
I'm way past my prime.
On a good day I wake up in the morning
Simply content to be alive
Wanting any more than that would be pointless
Even if I dared to strive.
So forgive me if I don't get pleasure
From when you share Happy Fathers or Mothers Day posts
It's not that I'm not pleased for you
I'm just hiding from my demons and ghosts.

Dulwich Poet 17th June 2018

(I wrote this on Fathers Day, in response to so many 'Happy Fathers Day' posts on Facebook)