Cliché

I’m a cliché.

I put my childish manhood to the test,

Didn’t stay to hear if I got a B or G

But either way I wish I’d failed.

My girlfriend is still waiting for me to collect the certificate.

My unborn is the road of my future,

My soles trample all over it

As I try to run away.

My dad did the same. I wonder:

Did his feet scar this same path

I promised I wouldn’t follow in?

Did he pass this McDonalds

Remembering how he and mum had to keep shtum

Because the toilet walls weren’t very soundproof?

Does he smile in regret?

I do.

I’m dropping out of parenthood

Because I know absence will always be there

When I’m not sure I should be.

Once upon a time absent fathers were fictional creatures.

Now fiction is factual,

We’re the villains to the next generation of potential and ambitions.

Is it any wonder they can’t spell happily ever after?

Is that what I want?

Do I want to be the ghost writer

Of a life I half-published?

Or do I want to retake?

Have to face my previous results though.

If it’s a G

I’ll finance her Further Studies so

She won’t have to sell her curves to be paid some attention.

If it’s a B

I’ll lift him into Higher Education so

He can look down on man-dem telling him to man up.

But am I up to it?

© One Tawny Stranger, June 2015