Ross Shideler - Tumblr Posts

What My Father Knows

by Ross Shideler

My father raised me to know

that I am not different

from anyone else. This knowledge

makes me respond to you all

with doubt.

If you dreamed

as an eight year old

of shoveling coal into a furnace

and the furnace exploded

blowing you sky high,

and you saw from up there

while hanging to a stove pipe

the entire city, then

came down slowly

to the basement again,

why don’t you wish

to be a bird as I do?

And assuming

that you discovered around fourteen

that your parents were nice

but not your own

and you watched every night

for a starship to arrive,

why aren’t you aware of how alien

we all are to this planet?

Perhaps most confusing

is that I know you have spent

as many days and nights

as I have fearing death

and dreaming of a private escape

or of a discovery to save everyone,

yet still you seem to forget

what heroes and heroines we are

to get up every morning,

to go to bed every night.