i

should be mad at him

standing somewhere

hand on my hip glaring

down my glasses at his

smirk steaming demanding

he take back that 1,000 dollar

cell phone and put the money

in his grandson’s college fund

 

we

should be arguing about the

inappropriateness of 12

year olds watching horror

movies and eating obscene

amounts of hot cheetos

while shopping for customized

designer shoes

sized 13

 

i

should be telling him

that joke posted about

his sponsor from

1996 was hurtful

his sponsor right to

block him

 

we

should be in mid-fight

me fuming

him half listening

mostly laughing still demanding

i cook steak or he

ain’t coming to dinner and

me yelling that the last thing

he needed was a steak because

the last thing he needed was

a steak

but

 

i’m

not mad not at him

not today and there are

no arguments left lingering

in the air about him

spoiling the ‘shit outta

his grandbaby’ because

they’ve never met

they’ve never met

 

i

can’t blame him for

the signature smirk

appearing on his grandson’s

face when he does something

ridiculous and has to listen

me fuming hand on my hip

staring down that same

damn half smile that says

‘i know, can i eat now’ or

‘are you finished’ or

‘it was fun though’

 

he

ain’t here to tell me

‘shit don’t matter’ or

‘ride it out, see what happens’ or

‘member that time…’

 

we

don’t argue and there are

no lessons on facebook

etiquette and the proper

way to take over the world

 

he

never had a facebook

 

i

never had the chance

to threaten to block him for

inciting a complete riot among

the recovery community because

he’d just discovered he could create

groups and left out key people

cause they ‘talk too much shit’

more than a decade

has come and gone

 

i

can still hear him

laughing and yelling and

sighing

 

i

can still smell

his smell

he tried that expensive

cologne cause he thought

that young thang liked it but

i always preferred the way

old spice lingered when he

left the room

 

i

should be mad

at him but today i can’t be

today

i can only

feel

the

empty

he

left

behind.