Failure To Love

It was on that day I became a man. A real man not what I grew up seeing. It was that day sitting at my mother's table. The very table she earned with her will and strength of her back alone. See it was days before we had fled from that home. From a man who had a heavy hand and weightless love. A women older now with not a nickel fled to a hotel where we were welcomed by a kind soul. A women scared with three children on her hip. We returned after hiding in fear for 3 days. And there I sat at my mother's table. A man bitter and angry sat to the right of me laughing. Joking and making light of the situation and my mother's fear. He turned and hit me on the shoulder giggling. Scared I did what a coward does, and laughed. How I think about that day and how I acted. I think someday how my mother most of felt. Me laughing with my father, at her. That day I speak of was my 12th birthday and that day I recall so well was the day I learned what a coward was. But not only this, this would be the day I decided what kind of man I was going to be. I would not put love aside for fear. I recall that day from time to time and it reminds me of who I've become; all for her my mother.