A Father’s Love

 

Forsaken and confused, feeling downtrodden from

A childhood lost trekking though a tumultuous slimy swamp of self-doubt, 

All because you never knew a father’s love.

Lord knows children need to give and receive affection,

To chase off feelings of inferiority,

And validate their value and importance.

Accept yourself for who you are, don’t be bitter,

You can’t love anyone else unless you first love yourself.

 

Why run and hide in the face of love?

Because it’s something you don’t know how to share?

You act like a deaf, dumb and blind child,

Hiding your brooding feelings in the attic of your mind,

Believing it’s far better not to love,

Then to love and lose, … again.

 

Like you, I lost my father young;

Feeling abandon, … I chose to avoid relationships,

Running from the fear that my world might become too real,

And eat up my insides all over again,

Like it did the dark day my father left.

 

Like me, you stubbornly demand guarantees to protect  your fragile heart

Where none can be given in matters of the heart.

Unless you learn to love you’ll eventually turn to stone,

With self-pity and suspicion your only friend.

Don’t condemn yourself to a life of little consequence,

Living in a world where the only thing that matters

Is the painful wound your father inflected on you so long ago.

 

Don’t think this brutish world has forsaken you,

Or willfully find fault with anyone who reaches out to you.

Living without feelings is almost like jumping into the abyss,

Because life is too much to bare,

Without a father’s love.

 

 

 

 

 

All Rights Reserved, Bill Bitetti July 1, 2014.