mean something
mean something
It’s about as clear
as a one-way mirror,
my reflection became a picture of you:
a long forgotten youth,
a time after grand plans,
a man that needed one last stand,
but damn,
you quit before the world was in your hands.
Parked on the street
and deposited for me,
a curbside mailbox
licked and stamped,
but without a return address to keep in touch.
One to two,
skip three,
it was shifting into fourth
that I was out the door,
your face looks encouraging,
but moves away from me
when I left home
and you closed life’s door;
now that’s all I’m looking for.
A life that you created
I inherited,
change happened when
one man’s desire for safety
didn’t coexist with our future;
she gave you three sons
before realizing that money
would be due payable on the 15th
while receivable receipts
came in tomorrow,
but that day
never came,
and now today
you sit in that empty house
with those pictures on the wall,
life being more memory
than reality;
I guess you taught me
to live in the land of make believe.
Five missed calls
and four voicemails
that I’ve played on repeat.
“I’m thinking about driving to Los Angeles,”
you said. “Call me back Pete.”
But you gave me that name,
as your Father did you,
and I learned this pursuit,
the one about chasing a dream
from you:
a fire under our ass,
the engine starting
the first time
every time,
it’s in the beginning
that it’s always promising,
a manic mind alive in possibility,
but it’s the climb,
the hill,
the struggle,
when our thermostat begins to overheat;
“Whatever you do,”
your eyes down
the last time I saw you.
“Don’t become like me.”
But,
when I was a kid
that’s all I ever wanted to be.
Look in that mirror again,
can’t you see
what I saw,
a man, a ballcap, and a grin;
a pass over the Grapevine onto the 99
and you were home on time
every time.
Mean what you say
and say what you mean
is the phrase that you taught me,
I’m as old now
as you were
when you had me,
but when I look in the mirror
I don’t see you,
I see me.
That’s gotta mean something.