Untitled Poem

I can’t forget the day my mother told me
over the phone and under a trance
“don’t come downstairs” her breath was shaking
the day that I lost my old man
he wasn’t my father, I wasn’t his son
he didn’t know me for who I was
but he helped raise me and watched me grow
he was a fighter that I was honoured to know
he spent his last months with his lungs on a leash
so much so that he couldn’t speak
what hurt me the most was the scrape of his pen
that stood in for the voice I’d never hear again
he lived and died in the house where I was born
he was everything I wanted to be
and as I grow up I see more of him in me
I didn’t understand how much he meant to me then
but I’d do anything just to see him again