A Father-Son Relationship: A poem by Christian Michael Lagura Yacapin

You’ve never listened to me

And I was submissive,

Fixing me as if I was a faulty product.

My mouth shut down,

Stitched up by the sound of your voice.

Miserable at the idea that I was broken.

You still think you’re in the right.

You cease to see that I’ve grown.

I am a serpent

And you are a lion,

Neither of us willing to back down.

I am infuriated

And so are you,

Each with

The determination to win.

She told me not to be scared,

Not to stay quiet.

She is never on my side.

I couldn’t fight back in life.

Now I’m reborn.

I’m changing.

Hurt by the fists and words in the air,

Hot-headed and hostile.

I can’t understand why we clash so much.

Looking back I’m demented.

Tears flowing from my eyes

Like a current flowing through a river.

The pain in my chest

A vice squeezing my heart.

I’m at a dead end.

Staring at a locked door ahead of me,

The only one who can open it is you.

Something so shattered.

Someone so separated.

A father-son relationship.

Fighting Words 2019: Christian Michael Lagura Yacapin is 15 and a student at CBS Westland Row, South Cumberland Street, Dublin 2