Every Step, Each Perspective Poem by Ian McArthur

(sometimes, anger is the strongest of fuels)

'I love you' in Formality
You say you saw a film last week.
Six thousand miles away
The phone brings me your voice
eight hours away.
Some motion picture, you saw.

I am as far away as can be on this earth from you, father (to say Dad feels too warm this instant)
The miles do not show the real distance between us. Not at all.
I am forcing communication - jolts to a deadened chest.
My sister has forsaken you - you deserve it.
My mother will speak, if called by you, in civic, caustic tones.

But you don't call. Not ever. I must force the tone. Bite back the bile of each digit, my digits pressing digits - I wish I could hate you, father.

You are my dad. I do not remember seeing you run. Hearing you laugh. Feeling you lifting me in your arms. Fatherly things

Sometimes we would eat. Often you read the newspaper. Do the crosswords. You dismissed me when I stood, trying to be helpful by your side. Sometimes that would be the only words for the day.

I do not remember seeing you often. Or learning from you. But one phrase stands out, as much you taught me, as I clumsily stalked does with you in the autumnal valley near our home: 'Every step gives you a different perspective.'

Oh yes. Oh yes it does, father. I never called you father, but in writing. I still hope to call you dad and feel it.

Every step, I have learned to stumble on my own - not walk
New perspectives - everyday. I am thoughtful, distracted often.

I remember a fight we had once. You threatened me - defending her again, as always. That drunken cur. that cunning, manipulative ball of grease. Sickening.

I would not back down, so you did. You walked away, had a quiet smoke and beer in the garage. I remained.

How can I ever look up to you, when you back down?

I must hate you.
I must love you.
I cannot do either, nor both.
I despise who you are, weak, so weak a man.
I love what you should have been, what Dad could have been.

I am drawn and quartered between them both, unable to hold, unable to let go.

Every step gives you a different, you taught me.
Yes. Oh yes.
Every step I take, is away from you.
Every perspective I gain, more disillusioned.

In pain, grief, regret.
In ecstasy and vengeance I declare:

Dad - Were I ever to be a father -
I would
Never
Be
You.



(post script note: It's shallow to take back what is said, even in strong emotion, so I won't change this. I don't have the best of relationships with him, clearly, and maybe never had. My love outweighs my hate nonetheless, and we try.)