I'm not gonna tell you happy birthday,
You don't deserve it.
I mean you know birthdays so well,
Considering the fact that you've skipped everyone, and everyone else's.
For every candle blown,
Was a wish that you'll never come back.

As you go to sleep every night-
Worrying about what child is milking you out of the insufficient funds you call a support.
Happy birthdays...
Something you never bothered to say to the 4 children and the potential more you'd have.
But I guess we'll never know.

Every time I hear my name-
See myself in the mirror, is a vile reminder of the things I'll never wanna be.
Never wanting to fall asleep,
Afraid of haunting nightmares of dreams of following down your shoes.
But I'm stuck with nagging paranoia,
And a name change to facade the idea that I'm a product of you.

Seeking for the missing approvals through the mediocre snaps in an open mic,
And washing away the anxiety with drugs and alcohol.
Making daddy issues sound like a turn on, to the lonely desperate regretfuls in a college dining hall.

Making sure I packed a condom every night on the town from the age of 14,
Hoping a bastard is the least of my problems.
Creating daddy and grand daddy issues like a motherfu-
Ignore that, these are the thoughts you leave me.

The thoughts you leave and create when you decide that hookers and drugs were a better time spent than with your sons.
Traumatizing the mind of a 9 year old,
Leaving myself to make the best decision to leave you myself.

As you create sleazy ways to reach back to me,
Through shitty Facebook ads from the women you claim to love.
Demanding I fall back into your arms like a good son,
As if I'm your only son...

I hope all those 42 candles on your cake is a year added to your sentence.
For I hope your prison cells hurts you more than the lives you've mistakenly decided to give.

Sitting in a cell- ruining yourself more than what any child's life you could have ruined.
Promising little boys and girls a perfect life with a supporting father.
A supporting liar-
Making my love colder than the cold shoulder you gave me when you decided I wasn't worth your time when you had it.

But now hoping I answer your one call nows every time you'll get detained.
Leaving you at a voicemail with a different voice,
Aging at the seems through a life I made without you.

As you'll one day discover my poems realizing every trouble I've had was caused from a moment you couldn't teach me from.
Realizing a handwritten letter will never be the same as seeing me face to face, teaching you to man up.
But I think the sight of that could leaving me to throwing up-

Vomiting the dreams and aspirations you'll never hear from me.
Cleansing out the smokes I'd toke just to thoughts of who I could have been in a life with you.
Choosing to bite my nails and playing dress up at nerdy conventions hoping to hide my identity of being your son more than the name changes I've made.

The days get closer to your birthday and the more I begin to loathe the thought of you. Writing poetry to talk down to the thought of you.

Wishing you could man up and take responsibility for an apology.

Man up,

I could laugh-

The thought that you could man up...

Man up-

MAN UP!

What kind of father decides the livelihood of his children isn't worth a damn and thinks that imprisonment is worth more than a job and a sense of support.

Like supporting a baby's head,

Or a pat on the back,

And like putting snacks in my backpack- for school day.

But now I'm stuck finding new ways, to get yourself away from me.

Making myself upset every moment I get, just to wish I was never your son.

But that's the problem, I am my father's son.

So happy birthday, I could care less.