Family Tree
Dad
Where, how to begin
My heritage slides back my tongue
In coded metaphor, I rhyme
It’s me, Jhene, this is some of my story.
My grandpa was a banker
drank himself into the grave,
That was the end of a life
filled with heart ache and rage.
His heavy had leaving blue skin brand on
grandma and
my uncle.
But not my father. He just had to watch.
Too small to stand or demand peace
in their broken land.
My father was grandma’s confidant.
She’d cry, say she wanted to die
while wearing silk and lace to catch his eye.
How’s a small mind sposed to deal with that?
Dad, You survived
But the wreckage’s still inside
and sometimes I still cry
for what we all could could have been.
Dad became a Doctor.
Took my mother for a wife.
Two kids a house a dog.
Packaged us in a white collar life.
Sounds good.
Looks good.
But behind closed doors the open sores
left us waging wars.
Booze, self-medication
threatening suicide situation
twisted dissertation
contorting a child’s daily revelation
My point of view annihilation weakening the foundation
of my personal
developing nation.
Yeah Dad, You survived
But the wreckage is still inside
and Dad sometimes I still cry
for what we all could could have been.
Well, Dad went and popped so many pills,
eventually his brain broke loose.
He finally felt the full effect
of my great-grandmother’s noose.
Now he lives in a hospital.
Yeah, and the biggest irony,
is the part of his mind that fell away,
took with it the pain of yesterday.
Now every time I see someone,
find myself thankin’ God it’s not me
I take a moment, and look in their eyes
and remember the rings of our family tree.
Cause yeah, most of us survive
but we each carry the wreckage inside
and sometimes everyone of us still cries
for what we all could have been.
