Diamond- How Drunk Are You Tonight, Dad?

a true poem about my father

How drunk are you tonight dad?

 

Drunk enough to fight?

 

Are you drunk enough to hit mommy?

 

Or passed out for the night

 

When you're sober, do you love me?

 

It's too cloudy

 

I can't see

 

Your speech is slurred and vision hazy

 

What have I done?

 

Why are you so crazy?

 

You leave me alone

 

Only when I don't want you to

 

When daddy gets drunk, and hates him,

 

What's a ten-year-old to do?

 

Come on dad.

 

Let's see what I've got

 

Now that you're done with mommy

 

She is bruised quite a lot

 

Come after me now, I'll beat you if I'm able

 

Punches thrown and curses shouted

 

I fall and break the coffee table

 

What happened to you?

 

You say you love us

 

Is it true?

 

1,400 miles

 

You WALKED to Minnesota just to see me in 1990

 

But now you're cold and heartless

 

How can this be?

 

Could it be the beer or coke?

 

Or possibly the weed you smoke?

 

How did the warmth and love go away?

 

Now you hate yourself more than us

 

Thank God you didn't stay

 

How drunk are you tonight dad?

 

It's really very sad

 

How drunk are you tonight dad?

 

OOPS!

 

...I made you mad

 

Stand me in a corner

 

Beat me with a belt

 

Scream at me and cut me down

 

Cause my self esteem to melt

 

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!

 

I'm sober tonight dad

 

I'm nothing like you

 

I don't scream at my girlfriend

 

I will never beat my kids

 

Your grandchildren will never need,

 

To write poems like this

 

You're just a sad old man now

 

Broken down and lonely

 

Too bad you had to push away,

 

The son who was your only

 

I'll never call you "dad" again

 

You can bank on that, it's true

 

Too bad you had to raise a son

 

Who can't bear to think of you

 

This family has forgotten you

 

Our affections are to cease

 

Danny Lamar Gilbert

 

May you rest in peace

 

I'll never know the why

 

But this poem is the how

 

And yet, still I wonder

 

Do you love me now?

Author's Note

I really hope this one does well. it's about as close to the heart as I'm going to get

Reviews

[Eustacia]

wow great flow with the rhyming, it gave it a good pace and made it really easy to read. It kinda read itself to me. And there was so much feeling in this, I could hear every word speaking out to me.

[unspokenguilt]

So sad, but well written. I like the part were you state how you'll never be like him...many people can say this but it takes a person with heart to mean it, to dust off that heart and learn from his mistakes.

Great job...i loved it!

[Kiya]

It's amazing what people write... and this one is no different from all the other heart bleedings all over the net. Rhyme, rhythm all perfect... Just so sorry that this has to happen to so amny people all over the world. =(