Layers

the anger is thick, deep,
it is like a crust, molded
and beginning to stink,
for so long it has festered,
I’ve tended to it like a garden,
conjuring thorns, weeds,
a swarm of insects, I have seemed
to like it–
but it’s the emergence
of grief that breaks through,
the tenderness that cuts
it, softens it to crumbs,
wipes it clean, says, you don’t want this.
I’m not angry at my father anymore –
What he did is not mine.
I miss him, actually, and
I think I just might love him,
actually, too much,
so terribly, that
it hurts so terribly,
that I think I might weep for so long,
that nothing will be left but the beginning.