my father's ghost

I'm nothing like my siblings,

they're warm and accomplished

while i'm bitter and festering

and lost in the shroud of booze.

They've done it all,

revered and hailed,

as I'm lost in a dark pall,

wallowing in my despair.

Like our mother those three are,

welcoming and full of hope.

As my face does fate mar,

leaving me wretched and dead.

I lack my mother's tenderness,

her warmth and love.

But my hateful bitterness,

that is all my father's.

My face and temperment,

none my mother's.

But wretched resignment,

that is all my father's.

His face and drinking,

all live on in me.

I lack her loving,

bitter as the beer I skall.

His despair found a new host,

as I am nothing but my father's ghost.