My Father’s Son

I want
more than anything
to be subsumed in distraction
to no longer feel the burden
of my own emptiness.

I want
more than sorrow
to feel something greater
than my own numb self.

I am
at once
absorbed in self-pity
consumed by longing
hollowed by the shrug of existence.

I, I, I.
I tire of my own pronoun,
wanting simply the strength
to shirk the robe of its embrace,
for it stifles me
more than it gives me life.

In this depression
I have so little to give
no pleasure to take.
Even masturbation
brings no reward.

To feel again
the warmth of another’s tears;
to see again
the rose in another’s cheek
as frozen winds
leave off the battering of their assault.

To shed the I enough
to hear the whimper of another’s pain;
to smell the musk of their fear,
and taste the salt of effort.

Oh, that my senses will awake again,
from the dark that obscures them,
these muddy clouds of me,
to once again permit my self
to be.