My fingers follow it all the way down, a chase

An answer, digested

Palatable perception, what truth did you eat today?

Your breakfast:

Apathy

Inaction

1 egg with pepper, no salt.

I rummage through your mostly empty stomach

I grasped at the air between their words

If the gods can define adequacy, then I, too, can be good.

I carry the weight of their definition

Mortal worship, divine connection

Make me good, I plead

I look into the sky and see my own reflection

Silly human, you cry out, God has been dead

The sky remains unresponsive

Moribund

I preserve my mortality, canning the exhale

I can be good, I whisper between your absences

You waste it,

a “good” breath for granted

I am no good, I am no god

The graverobber reburries the sunlight he unearthed

I am a mess of burning shame

My chest, torn open to an image of a cross

Obliterated, the once good deeds

Of a sinner relapsing into freedom

Into the escape from righteousness

The angels toy with their chains

They laugh at me

You won’t find it, that thing in which you hunt for

God is dead, and you are no good

I breathe out, virtue oozes from my lips in rapid succession

now i am what’s left of a child

rugged-worn down being

shaped out of pure divinity

mold my features so that they appear to kiss the setting sun

search my soul with eyes full of lust, love and wondering

so sweetly set me on your pedestal

fatherly compassion that only surfaces when the alcohol has engulfed your body

submerged so deeply in a drink that love is just another meaningless word

a silly phrase that slips off of your tongue with the sharp taste of whiskey

too intoxicated to hear the crack in my voice

when i tell you that I love you more

more than your addiction

more than myself

but my words are tossed into the trash

clinking with empty bottles

colliding with conversations you don’t recall

memories of an absent father that loosely maneuver through my conscience

I have to compete with a $58 bottle of bourbon

but you seem to love being numb more than raising your daughter

it’s alright dad

i’ll carry the both of us out of this mess

maybe one day when you wake up you’ll thank me for it

how I miss us

things were simple

the world wasn’t so big

we didn’t have to be anything to impress

whenever the air you breathe has only been touched by your lungs

the emptiness in the echo behind your screams

thoughts to be sorted in the cavern of your cranium