My Father Poem by robert seminara

I never see my son.
His mother had him since 3
I had my own problems.
Still do.
The booze took me down with it
the drugs and women they took me down
the loneliness the war these pin holes on my arms they all took me down.
In this shape I'm in, not much can help.
Hard times look harder when there's nothing soft on the horizon.
The world closing in like a deflating balloon.
I just let it all collapse.
My son is a man now
We're a lot alike.
His own demons as they're called, scratching
his back like a lover
He lies the same as me I'm told.
That's my boy.
He has my face, my curse, loneliness, all the same.
I wasn't there to teach him, he learned it all on his own.
He also went to war.
If I know myself, he's still there in the war he survived but died in all the same.
He's sweating in the night waking to the body's need for whatever puts a cork in the flow of blood before his eyes.
For me it was black tar heroin and a gallon of port every day.
Maybe I should reach out to him, tell him about the port.