She said I now owe someone an inheritance

Those words sounded like death’s knock had come to my door

I could no longer live the life I had become accustomed to

and I had to bury the decisions of the past below a tombstone marked “youthful exuberance”

I was going to be a father

I needed to disassociate myself from my childlike ways

Spend less time on chasing dreams and more on building a legacy

You were months away from birth yet you had given me new life

and the closest you got to a “hello”

was the sound made by a blob in a water sack on a black and white screen

at a rate of 155 beats per minute

I didn’t know where to start but I knew I needed to protect you

I had hoped for a girl but you had other plans

and I suppose that was the first time father and son didn’t agree

Your mother and I had nothing but love to give

Little did we know you had plans to leave

and that was the second time we didn’t see eye to eye

because you broke the heart of the one I called love of my life,

because of you she forgot how to smile

and I moved away from God for a while

You tasted air while I was not around

and the first time our eyes met,

yours were closed

and then I lay you in the ground

because you no longer belonged to the land of the living

That was the only day we were ever in the same room

You, your mother and a man who used to know how to be happy.