The Cassette Tape

When I was young, I had a cassette tape of harbor and ocean sounds:
25 years later and I remembered it tonight

Also, memories of my father,
From eyes I had not seen through in as many years;
And I miss him:
Charasmatic animal / child he was.

Warm and safe at 32,
Tonight,
I see him with a love I have never felt
And I know that I have subtracted the hate I bore when I wanted to kill him, at 13.

No, I do not hate my father;
My Father, who carried these genes –
And not just mine, but something rawer and closer to the bone:
Generations, poverty
Alchoholics; sad stories;
Humans, people, hoping things
And me at thirteen,
Wishing I could blast a shotgun through the wall –
My reasons were manifold.

And now, my temple, my cathedral,
My spiritual homeland and my bedrock,
Is a bedroom in an apartment, one room from where my father slept,
When he was not passed out,
On the couch,
Snoring like a goddamned bear –
The sound coming through the wall,
How it disturbed me…

And so I played the cassette tape
Of the harbor and the ocean and the fog-horn,
And I fell asleep to the sounds my father taught me to love.

And now, tonight, I remember this all,
And I see my life like a movie,
And I rewind the tape, play it back in my head,
And from that bedroom,
When I go back there,
Everything makes sense,
And I’m sad my father’s dead

But back then, it wasn’t just a tape in my head,
“My whole youth was sharper than cleats”
But now, I made it
And I see my own Moonlight,
Play in my head,
And I’m a good man,
And I’m not scared.