Epitaph for Poppa (Because I feel like you're dead)

They say that humble beginnings are when you've began in a deprived situation,
So I must've been humble since I came out of the womb,
Because here I am,
Yearning for the day we’ll be together again for the first time,
Thinking about your stick and stone of a love that led to words you didn’t have,
that are still hurting me,
My forgiveness for my father has gotten lost between the lines of a sad poem,
Written after my ears bled the words after being stabbed by a voicemail that was too late,
And too fake.

Mom always said you weren’t shit.
Probably couldn’t even make it in my pampers,
Maybe that’s why you weren’t there to change my pampers,
I ask, where were your fingerprints on the bars of my baby crib?
Or on my stroller,
Or kindergarten and grades 5, 8, and 12 graduation diploma,
Why were your hands never cupped around my back so I could pour into you,
When I needed to,
When I needed you,
When I hugged myself on Christmas mornings because mom worked overtime making sure that her boss’ children would receive presents for the rest of their lives,
Believe me when I say Santa Clause came to town just as many times as you did,

And it’s funny how the dryness of your soul is what created my damp pillows,
I even dreamed about crying myself to sleep,
After doing it enough to choke on the reality that you didn’t want me,
Had enough nightmares that they would become synonymous with my dreams,
For twenty years I have watched my disappointment sprout,
Your weeds have been the thorns in my flowery quicksand of a life since I was just your seed,
Watering it with my tear ducts,
I’m tired of walking on spilled tears that you never bothered to clean up,
Tired of mourning over broken promises that were never fixed so you wouldn’t have to construct a relationship,
And here you are today.

Again where you won’t be tomorrow,
You are cheating on with yourself because you are quitting while you're still behind,
Two hundred and nineteen pictures that I have taken without you,
And had you been there for any one of them,
You would’ve learned that your son has a photographic memory,
But remember this.
Every poem that I have written about you, you have written for me,
And the only time I’ve felt apart of you was during preconception,
I hope that you live long enough to wonder if I treated your grandson the same,
And if I haven’t grown up to be a man,
Know that it was through your absence that I learned that it was best to just be human.