An avoided presence crowded my youth,
slapped backs to walls, unable to move,
slanted answers swung up onto fear's greedy ears
as an inhaled bubble of disappearing tears.

Trembling to a wobbling quiver, I took my first steps
up from a stagnant mud of complacency's depths.
The brown ooze grew, and stunted to cemented brims,
so I rose to my heights, and stomped atop paper limbs.

Alone I marched, through naked lips of distant winds,
sprinted towards spinning tornados--unlimited sins;
roofless, I shivered, under rivers of rain and frostbitten lies.
Solely it was I--reaching peace beneath unending skies.

His absence trapped my innocence--never to return;
I was a rose petal, running from the dirt.
From a boy to a man, sprouting quick dignity,
gradually blooming into what he would give to me.

He laughed, he mocked, he joked, and then he left--
the only action stolen was my own self-neglect.
Without him, and long with him, nonetheless,
my father is the reason I stand now on solid legs.