(continued version)
Son
The call came
on an ordinary afternoon.
Your name flashing
like a memory I had buried.
“He’s gone.”
Gone?
Without hearing me forgive you.
Without hearing me say
that I waited, too,
for you to try.
At your funeral
they spoke of you differently.
“He worked double shifts.”
“He never bought new clothes for himself.”
“He kept your childhood drawings
in his wallet.”
They said you would smile
whenever someone asked about me.
Said you called me
“my greatest achievement.”
I did not know
I was loved
in past tense.
I found your old diary_
numbers, expenses,
my school dates circled in red.
Beside one entry you had written,
“Someday he will understand
why I had to be hard.”
That day
was the day you left.
(to be continued)
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,011 Literary Works • 672,841 Reviews
this poem is a deep and grieving process of a son a mother, a father or a friend.
this part fills quite important; the tension of a argument or a fight happens.
and was unfortunate to pass without a worthy apology
those words really hit deep, the way they're looking back at there old belongings unable to
let go
really touching and a good way of describing the setting for anyone who has never lost a loved one, most people that have lost friends loved ones and have attended a funeral will know the person that is speaking about the person that is now passed away will basically never tell the truth of the real person
keep up the good work
this poem is a deep and grieving process of a son a mother, a father or a friend.
this part fills quite important; the tension of a argument or a fight happens.
and was unfortunate to pass without a worthy apology
those words really hit deep, the way they're looking back at there old belongings unable to
let go
really touching and a good way of describing the setting for anyone who has never lost a loved one, most people that have lost friends loved ones and have attended a funeral will know the person that is speaking about the person that is now passed away will basically never tell the truth of the real person
keep up the good work
This is the kind of poem that becomes more powerful the further you read. What I liked most is that it doesn't try too hard to make the reader emotional. Instead, it lets small details do the work, and those details stay with you long after the poem ends.
The strongest part of the poem is the shift in perspective. At the beginning, the speaker is carrying years of hurt and unfinished feelings toward his father. When the news of the father's death arrives, those feelings don't disappear, but they start to change. The poem slowly moves from resentment to understanding, and it does so in a very natural way.
The funeral scene is particularly well written. The comments from other people help build a picture of the father that the speaker never fully saw. The details about working double shifts, wearing old clothes, and keeping childhood drawings in his wallet feel believable because they are simple. They don't feel like poetic inventions; they feel like real memories.
The diary entry is probably the emotional heart of the piece. "Someday he will understand why I had to be hard" is the moment where everything comes together. It doesn't suddenly make the father right, but it shows that there was more to him than the speaker realized. That complexity is what gives the poem its depth.
Like finding a bunch of bananas in an old family kitchen and suddenly being reminded of someone who is no longer there, the poem shows how ordinary things can carry unexpected emotions. By the end, you're left thinking about the conversations that never happened and the people we sometimes understand only after they're gone.
For me, that's what makes this poem work. It feels honest, human, and patient with its emotions. It doesn't force a lesson on the reader, it simply tells a story and trusts the reader to feel its weight.