There was a man who lived in my street,
at the farthest corner of Bethlehem Rd.
He had a son once, but now carries a load
of regret on his back,
testament to the past he keeps looking at.
His son went away to some far away land,
said, "I want to get away as far as I can,
for this city in not enough distance,
and this country is to small,
I have to get far from my horrid old man."
The details are hazy,
but tinged with regret,
and the memories though blurred
are hard to forget,
because the man that lived on Bethlehem Rd. had lived there for years,
by himself, all alone.
I visit him every Christmas.
On that morning we have tea
and read "A Christmas Carol".
And when we are done he weeps,
tells me he wishes I was his son.
Every year it gets harder not to cry with him, because every year I understand more and more that the man had a life that people would abhor,
his hands bear the scars of some kind of abuse, they are far to gentle and too out of use,
like he is deliberate in being withdrawn
almost coy
For he used take his anger out on his boy.
He does not own that life anymore, something happened maybe he found the Lord,
or found a way to use his hands for good.
It makes me sad,
because it almost doesn't matter
that he's changed,
for someone he will always be that same man that took his anger much too far.
He may never have got put behind bars,
but his home is prison enough.
He has never let his sentence end,
never gotten out of it,
never thought that leaving was possible. Because if the world wasn't going to punish him for a crime he did, he would.
Take all the punishment he could,
because nothing could make up for the fact that his son was never coming back to him.
And so Christmas would pass, sad.
The man on Bethlehem Rd. died a year after that last Christmas.
At the funeral the town talked about how he was a good man given a rough fate.
His son was there, unexpectedly.
Said he was glad to see his old man do better, said he was sad he never got to meet the man they talked about.
Everyone said it was sad that they never saw each other in time,
but I had my doubts as the sky
opened up with tears.
The old man cried that day from heaven after seeing his son one last time
after all these years.
SK
A/N: this is a REALLY long one, so congrats if you made it to the end. To be honest, it's not good at all but I wrote it so I could have the idea.
