My Monday Metrical Musings #12

Rocking Chair

There he sits
In his father’s old rocking chair
Bobbing back and forth
Back and forth
Back and forth.

It takes him back
To happier times
Or maybe they were just
Innocent times?
When the world seemed easy
And when ‘gay’ meant ‘happy’.

“I feel your pain, son”
His dad once told him
But he didn’t really
Though the boy wished he had
But no, not this dad
This dad knew nothing
Understood nothing
So the boy had to have imagined it

Or wanted desperately
For someone to breathe that
Into his hungry ears
That yearned
For sympathy

But none came

It was just something
You’re supposed to say
When you don’t know
What else
To

So the little boy sits alone
Wondering when the world
Will stop spinning and spinning
And people would come
Listening
Listening.

But they don’t
No one does.
No one bothers to.
Because it’s like you know
Who wants to hang around a loser anyway?

That’s how he felt
I should know.

I’m that boy
And maybe
I always will
Be.

Rocking rocking
On that old rickety chair.
Wishing
Hoping
Without a prayer.