Like father.

Blood of father flowed in my vein and I can see his face.

                                      Like father.


     
                          
I look in the mirror.
What do I see?

Have I become what I despised all my life?
I have my father’s eyes.
Now I know my father’s pain.
Have my eyes become cold?
Is violence and anger my strength?

Each day I learned loss.
Loss of dreams and desires.
Kindness and gentleness forgotten.

I follow my father’s path to war.
I did what he had done.
Now I talk to dead friends lost to war in a self-made hell.

Will I become like my father?
Showing passion and emotion when I'm in violence or aroused.

Can I stop my journey to adulthood?
Can I find the path to gentleness and love?

Have I traveled too far?
Is the blood too strong?
Am I destined to hurt everyone I have loved?

My father’s hatred.
Is it my anger too?

Am I free to choose my journey?If I choose my own road.
Why did I follow my father sadness.

                                  Coyote

Author's Note

Thank you for reading. Any mistakes. Please help. Never too old to learn.

Reviews

[Just Kim]

WOW I feel so much pain and anguish really,
Deeply emotional.

[tamsen grier]

This poem expresses well a commonly-felt emotion--the anxiety of inevitably becoming what our parents were. It's sometimes difficult to shed new light on a near-universal experience. I believe this poem does that.

Favorite lines: "My father's hatred/Is it my anger too?" Very profound.

[Devanshu Rajput]

in this provoking write i feeled the pain, i feeled the questions that you asked....a poem on the man who spends his full life for his child....who doesn't think of anything but about his child....

[Daisie Vergara (Dhaye)]

It's sad. I can feel what you feel as a son of a military man.You don't like it - the fear when there is war, or any situation that will cause your father to danger. And now, you are following his ways- causing your own children to feel what you have felt in your childhood.
An army is a hero. You are fighting for your nation. Keep going.

[Robert James Parfett]

What a powerful and moving piece. While I cannot say I have inherited a violent nature from my father, everyone whether we like it or not picks up things from their parents. Sometimes it is just inevitable. Thanks Coyote

[Tree]

You reveal a truth we must all admit to ourselves at one point. As I have gotten older I find that in many ways I am my father. But I try to remember his weaknesses, so I do not repeat his mistakes. But still, it's fascinating really, how the old path and the new find a way to converge. An excellent piece Coyote, that illuminates

[jacob erin-cilberto]

wow, i don't know, coyote.

it's almost inevitable..somehow we become our fathers. my father and i are so different philosophically...yet in many ways i am he...

it sneaks up on me how similar we are in some ways...he is 93...but interestingly now he often looks to me for answers....when he was always the one who had them.

[quinfinn]

some say that the apple never falls too far from the tree. in some cases this is the absolute truth, but is isn't cut in stone. another amazing write from your very gifted pen, coyote. thank you for sharing.

[Neva Flores Smith - Cha..]

Coyote, this grabbed my heart and squeezed. I felt the pain and the questions of the poet. Masterfully written my friend.

[Valentine]

I think sometimes we all looka t ourselves as the ones who made us..and see similarites the thing is to stop when we see the bad in ourselves looking like the bad in a parent..No ones parents are perfect..I could tell you things that would curl your hair..you are worth more that that..I can feel it in your writing..God loves you..Valentine