The Couch

You hadn't seen your father in such a long time.
He died in the arms of his lover.
How dare he?
Your mother never left the house.
She never married anyone else,
You took it upon yourself to console her.

You reminded her so much of your father,
So you were banished
And you wonder why you're so hypersensitive.
And why you can't trust anyone but us.
But then how can I begin to forgive her?
So many years under bridges with dirty water.
She was foolish and selfish and cowardly if you ask me.

I don't know where to begin in all my 50 old years.
I have been silently suffering and adapting,
perpetuating, and enduring.
Who are you younger generation to tell me that I have
unresolved problems?
Not many examples of fruits of this type of
excruciating labor.

How can you just throw words around like grieve and
heal and mourn?
I feel fine, we may not have been born as awake as you were.
It was much harder in those days, we had paper routes
uphill both ways.
We went from school to a job to wife to instant
parenthood.

I walked into his office, I felt so self-conscious on
the couch.
He was sitting down across from me, he was writing
down his hypothesis. I don't know.
I've got a loving supportive wife who doesn't know how
involved she should get.
You say his interjecting was him just calling me on
my shit?

Just the other day, my sweet daughter, I was driving past 203.
I walked up the stairs in my mind's eye.
I remember how they would creak loudly.
She was only responsive with a drink,
He was only responsive by photo.
I was only trying to be the best big brother I could.

I've walked sometimes confused sometimes ready to
crack open wide.
Sometimes indignant, sometimes raw.
Can you imagine I pay him 75 dollars an hour
sometimes?
It feels like highway robbery.
And sometimes it's peanuts.
I wish it could last a couple more hours.

So here we both are battling similar demons (not
coincidentally)
You see in getting beyond knowing it slowly
intellectually,
You're not relinquishing your majesty.
You are wise, you are warm, you are courageous, you are big.
And I love you more now than I ever have in my whole life.

by jun!or