He was iron and shadow,

an immovable wall,

a Colossus of stone,

etched with the silence of centuries.

His love was a riddle,

a glacier’s edge-

cold, sharp, dead.

Fishing was our truce,

the water a mirror for words unsaid.

But his bottle floated between us,

always his true companion instead.

Paychecks burned holes in his pocket,

disappearing into the night.

And when he returned,

an unleashed quake,

the walls seemed to tremble in his wake.

The base throbbed like a second heart,

the air thick with thunder unbound,

and we stood on the fault line,

bracing for the split in the ground.

He was strength without warmth,

a mountain unyielding and bare.

I reached for him in the storms of his rage,

but his wall was all that was there.

Dad

It didn't come natural

Dad

We were more your collateral, damage

But Dad

You fought your demons and won for a time

And I can say, I'm glad

So glad, that you were my dad

Then the bottle broke,

and his ghost softened.

“Bipolar,” they said,

as if naming it made it less sharp.

For a while, he stayed—

not healed, but present.

When he told me he was proud,

I locked the words away,

letting them bloom later,

alone, like flowers out of the light of day.

But giants don’t fall all at once.

It began with a manic glow,

a new truck, the edges frayed,

paranoia weaving its nets of fear.

He unraveled like threads of smoke,

the Colossus crumbling,

Flood came too quick, unable to cope.

He was strength without balance,

a weight that could not be borne.

I stood in his shadow, longing for light,

but his silence was sharper than scorn.

Dad

It didn't come natural

Dad

We were more your collateral, damage

But Dad

You fought your demons and won for a time

And I can say, I'm glad

So glad, that you were my dad

Dad

The call came like a final verse,

the emptiness of a room,

an empty bottle,

Then an ambulance,

the faint hum of machines.

We sang him home,

our voices thin,

as he faded away,

a titan unmade.

His last breath rattled like dry leaves,

stone to dust in the morning light.

I carry his name, his echoes, his weight,

a Colossus now with my own dispair.

But I’ll walk forward, step by step,

with the memories of his love in the air,

imperfect, but there.

(I miss you...Dad)

He was strength without balance,

a weight that could not be borne.

I stood in his shadow, longing for light,

but his silence was sharper than scorn.

Dad

It didn't come natural

Dad

We were more your collateral, damage

But Dad

You fought your demons and won for a time

And I can say, I'm glad

So glad, that you were my dad

Dad

Dad

(Dad)