Categories > Original > Drama > Lola
My father was a loving man. He loved anyone but me and my mother, especially me.
No, he never beat me, or verbally berate me, he just wasn't there for us.
When I got into a nasty car wreck when I was 17, he didn't come to the hospital until much later. It was only about a half hour before I was discharged with only a twisted ankle, whiplash, and a sprained wrist.
I found out later it was because he was too busy wining and dining his fuck buddy secretary.
After I had caught him the act the first time, my old man tried to get me to understand his infidelity. He tried to explain that things change, people change in life. He thought he could soften my reason and anger with a can of beast, still warm from being stored in the garage under his beat up golf bag.
I only took sips of the cheap beer, my stomach barely able to handle such a shit beverage.
And we sat there, on our grimy suburban stoop, my bare feet being warmed on the early sunset baked pavement.
He told me that he hoped to make things right one day with me and my mother, to get things together for a reasonable result. Just sugar coating a shit cookie was all that he was doing, it was what he was good at.
I told him, "Dad, either make things official with your mistress, or shut the fuck up! If you don't love me and mom, then divorce, move out, and move on!"
Of course, he did not like that at all. Why, the mere fact that his only son and child was chastising him for a change, and with profanity! To have his own flesh and blood tell him what to do, a grown man, it was unheard of. He took a long drink from his cold, fresh, high grade brew, and calmly set it down, before he knocked my can out of my hand, causing it to explode on the pavement, spraying beer everywhere.
He raised a hand, ready to strike me down where I sat.
He wanted me to be afraid of him again, like the night he had pinned me down, nearly crushing me, and having me swear an oath of silence to him.
I glared back, ready for the blow, hoping he would hit me so I could call child services on him. In hopes of "cock blocking" him from his sexual romps with his lover.
But he thought better of it and himself, he slowly lowered his upraised fist. Instead, he retrieved his beer, and walked back into the house, leaving me and the mess.
"Clean that up before you mother gets home!" I heard him shout from inside.
"Yeah..okay," I had said bitterly, wanting nothing more than to have a real decent beer and a finely rolled joint.
After cleaning it up, Gabe came by to hang out. We'd break out his parents old records from the 60's and 70's, listen and zone out on the deeper meaning. To know that at one point in the history of life, that life was more than go to school, graduate, go to a superb college, graduate, start a family, and work for the rest of your life. Life had been about fighting a losing war, standing up for what you believed in, fucking for peace, music, art, and the true pursuit of happiness.
Ironically, Gabe would be killed years later in Afghanistan while trying to clear out an underground Al-Qaeda network. This was before "Bunker-Busters" were perfected, and he died at the hands of a 14 year old boy, who in turn was shot down by a dozen men armed to the teeth.
At his funeral, I felt so much hatred, anger, sorrow, all of it bottled up into one vile chamber.
I had to do something, I had to scream at the top of my lungs at the highest peak of humanity it seemed, to keep my own humanity intact. I had to tell myself and others what was on my mind and in my heart. To put thought into verbal words, it was impossible. So poetry became a factor again. I had been writing at a young age, but only naive trifle bullshit donkey-rythmns, with no real substance or emotion. I needed something that was aside of pure untouched anger, I needed to move up, step up my game, and try to really portray my feelings in efforts in a way that I could understand and relate to.
So I wrote "Son of a gun".
"He wasn't old enough to truly feel the love of a woman.
The gasping breath of his first born.
The feeling of pure joy and accomplishment that life is supposed to bring
At that key apex point in ones travelings and journeys
To trek an almost impossible and impassable path
That is constantly set before us.
He had the will to conquer these terrains,
To make the toughest crags and crevices of life
Seem like nothing more than a child's playground.
His life was short, but he lived a life that was beyond his years
A life filled with temporary accomplishments, and ever encompassing defeats.
He was a beguiling swan, with the blackest of feet in the purest water
But still a non-chalant and awe inspiring creation that may not be unto the Lord
But a being of the greatest and most goodly qualities that only I can aspire and hope to attain.
I can never stand in his light, or shadow
For he was one of his own kind, a true harbinger of hope and prosperity
I am not his brother, I am not his blood, I am not his equal.
I am but a tired and saddened man, who was his friend.
My mother wept at the funeral, my father was still and careless. Gabe's family and girlfriend, tall and silent stone, never uttering a sound. I am not sure if it was for pride, honor, or numbness, but I refused to cry for him myself.
I still have the orignal copy of that poem, locked away in a foot locker, in my mothers attic somewhere with my most personal and secret effects.
Lola Chloe, she has made me feel the way I felt on that day, the day I put my best friend into the ground. The feeling that grief is natural, that it is to be painfully human, that raw unedited emotion is what makes us the most vulnerable and compassionate.
Her work begs for a proper recognition and an audience to hear the clamoring ring of her written voice.
I must find her not onl for myself, not only for her, but for those who need to read a fine written story, that has yet to have it's first page prologue turned.
No, he never beat me, or verbally berate me, he just wasn't there for us.
When I got into a nasty car wreck when I was 17, he didn't come to the hospital until much later. It was only about a half hour before I was discharged with only a twisted ankle, whiplash, and a sprained wrist.
I found out later it was because he was too busy wining and dining his fuck buddy secretary.
After I had caught him the act the first time, my old man tried to get me to understand his infidelity. He tried to explain that things change, people change in life. He thought he could soften my reason and anger with a can of beast, still warm from being stored in the garage under his beat up golf bag.
I only took sips of the cheap beer, my stomach barely able to handle such a shit beverage.
And we sat there, on our grimy suburban stoop, my bare feet being warmed on the early sunset baked pavement.
He told me that he hoped to make things right one day with me and my mother, to get things together for a reasonable result. Just sugar coating a shit cookie was all that he was doing, it was what he was good at.
I told him, "Dad, either make things official with your mistress, or shut the fuck up! If you don't love me and mom, then divorce, move out, and move on!"
Of course, he did not like that at all. Why, the mere fact that his only son and child was chastising him for a change, and with profanity! To have his own flesh and blood tell him what to do, a grown man, it was unheard of. He took a long drink from his cold, fresh, high grade brew, and calmly set it down, before he knocked my can out of my hand, causing it to explode on the pavement, spraying beer everywhere.
He raised a hand, ready to strike me down where I sat.
He wanted me to be afraid of him again, like the night he had pinned me down, nearly crushing me, and having me swear an oath of silence to him.
I glared back, ready for the blow, hoping he would hit me so I could call child services on him. In hopes of "cock blocking" him from his sexual romps with his lover.
But he thought better of it and himself, he slowly lowered his upraised fist. Instead, he retrieved his beer, and walked back into the house, leaving me and the mess.
"Clean that up before you mother gets home!" I heard him shout from inside.
"Yeah..okay," I had said bitterly, wanting nothing more than to have a real decent beer and a finely rolled joint.
After cleaning it up, Gabe came by to hang out. We'd break out his parents old records from the 60's and 70's, listen and zone out on the deeper meaning. To know that at one point in the history of life, that life was more than go to school, graduate, go to a superb college, graduate, start a family, and work for the rest of your life. Life had been about fighting a losing war, standing up for what you believed in, fucking for peace, music, art, and the true pursuit of happiness.
Ironically, Gabe would be killed years later in Afghanistan while trying to clear out an underground Al-Qaeda network. This was before "Bunker-Busters" were perfected, and he died at the hands of a 14 year old boy, who in turn was shot down by a dozen men armed to the teeth.
At his funeral, I felt so much hatred, anger, sorrow, all of it bottled up into one vile chamber.
I had to do something, I had to scream at the top of my lungs at the highest peak of humanity it seemed, to keep my own humanity intact. I had to tell myself and others what was on my mind and in my heart. To put thought into verbal words, it was impossible. So poetry became a factor again. I had been writing at a young age, but only naive trifle bullshit donkey-rythmns, with no real substance or emotion. I needed something that was aside of pure untouched anger, I needed to move up, step up my game, and try to really portray my feelings in efforts in a way that I could understand and relate to.
So I wrote "Son of a gun".
"He wasn't old enough to truly feel the love of a woman.
The gasping breath of his first born.
The feeling of pure joy and accomplishment that life is supposed to bring
At that key apex point in ones travelings and journeys
To trek an almost impossible and impassable path
That is constantly set before us.
He had the will to conquer these terrains,
To make the toughest crags and crevices of life
Seem like nothing more than a child's playground.
His life was short, but he lived a life that was beyond his years
A life filled with temporary accomplishments, and ever encompassing defeats.
He was a beguiling swan, with the blackest of feet in the purest water
But still a non-chalant and awe inspiring creation that may not be unto the Lord
But a being of the greatest and most goodly qualities that only I can aspire and hope to attain.
I can never stand in his light, or shadow
For he was one of his own kind, a true harbinger of hope and prosperity
I am not his brother, I am not his blood, I am not his equal.
I am but a tired and saddened man, who was his friend.
My mother wept at the funeral, my father was still and careless. Gabe's family and girlfriend, tall and silent stone, never uttering a sound. I am not sure if it was for pride, honor, or numbness, but I refused to cry for him myself.
I still have the orignal copy of that poem, locked away in a foot locker, in my mothers attic somewhere with my most personal and secret effects.
Lola Chloe, she has made me feel the way I felt on that day, the day I put my best friend into the ground. The feeling that grief is natural, that it is to be painfully human, that raw unedited emotion is what makes us the most vulnerable and compassionate.
Her work begs for a proper recognition and an audience to hear the clamoring ring of her written voice.
I must find her not onl for myself, not only for her, but for those who need to read a fine written story, that has yet to have it's first page prologue turned.
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