Baggage: A Poem for Fathers Day

Baggage: A Poem for Fathers Day

Karen Prive

Who gets in a fistfight at Disney World?

That would be my father –

Striking another tourist

For daring to step in his vicinity

My tears fall not because it happened

In the land of magic and wonder

But because it was

Just another day in our lives

From infancy I would scream in his presence

Living in reptilian fear

When older I taunted him

Forcing the inevitable on my timeline

I survived, as did my mother and my brother

And even that beaten down Disney tourist.

I still carried the damaged suitcase with me

Clinging to it as though it carried my life

Upon my birth Dad had put down the bottle

To avoid being the drunken brute his father had been

Turned out inebriation was overrated

As the cause of family violence

Yet he perused garage sales for toys he could afford

Skateboards, a pogo stick, skis and boots.

He taught me to ride a bike, to fish, to shoot

With hesitant reflection I admit he cared

For half a century I’ve carried my resentment

And failed to see that I was not the only burdened one

Before him my grandfather threw fists

And before him generations did the same

I wasn’t seeking forgiveness when

It came softly knocking at my door

Explaining that my baggage does not define me

Whispering “Just as his baggage did not define him”

It is not exactly forgiveness that found me – perhaps it is like forgiveness has a younger and less evolved sibling. This is another poem that practically wrote itself. These days I understand that my father’s violence was not about me but about his inner demons – and as I have my own demons, the knowledge softened my heart to some degree.

2 thoughts on “Baggage: A Poem for Fathers Day

  1. What found you again was your invincible spirit, looking to understand instead of demanding to be understood. On your path, you strive to take the high road and not stoop to the levels that other people’s demons drove them. Your healing gains momentum from that grace, in fits and starts and occasional leaps. It’s your dance of life. 🎶❤

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