on the 6am train the men smell like my father; red bull, cigarettes, dried cement - they wake up like my father i feel safe in this carriage, these men are my father, any man with a van and one arm out the window, sunburnt from the elbow down - the infamous builder’s tan - seats so dusty i can’t breathe and i have lungs like my father, full of second-hand smoke and concrete, a touch of asbestos, i should weep for my father but my pockets are healthy i am told by my father whose hands shake as he brings another beer to his lips at 10am on a saturday morning, this is coping for my father these men cope - cope like my father - with the asbestos lungs, uneven tans, shaking hands, muscles in constant pain, water on the brain, the ever encroaching grasp of old age; with substances up the nose they unwind like my father this kind of masculinity doesn’t last forever, you know, the rot will appear, until all that’s left is being a father, he stews in this knowledge, so i must pity my father a fixed door, paid bill, loose cash, all mean i love you from my father; behind my back he compliments me, to my face you look like your mother; this is hate from my father it has been fourteen weeks since i spoke to my father, fourteen weeks since my twenty-sixth birthday when at the top of the walkie-talkie he forgot it was my birthday; i must admit that twenty-six years of close calls did not prepare me for the day i was forgotten by my father fourteen weeks later he calls my brother about his twenty-first birthday - the BIG one, says my father, - and complains to my brother that i have stopped calling, she don’t need no more money, so she’s given up on her father on the 6am train i start to miss my father; the smell of red bull that stuck to leather seats in the mid-september heat in the van with my father, he chases the sunrise down the m25 to get me to my flat in time for the first beer at lunchtime, i roll down the window to escape the smoke and i hear new stories from my father, reminiscing as he drives he goes through a packet by the time we reach the coast, and i say goodbye to my father i wonder if i will get to say goodbye to my father.
on the 6am train the men smell like my father; red bull, cigarettes, dried cement - they wake up like my father i feel safe in this carriage, these men are my father, any man with a van and one arm out the window, sunburnt from the elbow down - the infamous builder’s tan - seats so dusty i can’t breathe and i have lungs like my father, full of second-hand smoke and concrete, a touch of asbestos, i should weep for my father but my pockets are healthy i am told by my father whose hands shake as he brings another beer to his lips at 10am on a saturday morning, this is coping for my father these men cope - cope like my father - with the asbestos lungs, uneven tans, shaking hands, muscles in constant pain, water on the brain, the ever encroaching grasp of old age; with substances up the nose they unwind like my father this kind of masculinity doesn’t last forever, you know, the rot will appear, until all that’s left is being a father, he stews in this knowledge, so i must pity my father a fixed door, paid bill, loose cash, all mean i love you from my father; behind my back he compliments me, to my face you look like your mother; this is hate from my father it has been fourteen weeks since i spoke to my father, fourteen weeks since my twenty-sixth birthday when at the top of the walkie-talkie he forgot it was my birthday; i must admit that twenty-six years of close calls did not prepare me for the day i was forgotten by my father fourteen weeks later he calls my brother about his twenty-first birthday - the BIG one, says my father, - and complains to my brother that i have stopped calling, she don’t need no more money, so she’s given up on her father on the 6am train i start to miss my father; the smell of red bull that stuck to leather seats in the mid-september heat in the van with my father, he chases the sunrise down the m25 to get me to my flat in time for the first beer at lunchtime, i roll down the window to escape the smoke and i hear new stories from my father, reminiscing as he drives he goes through a packet by the time we reach the coast, and i say goodbye to my father i wonder if i will get to say goodbye to my father.
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