Father at Sixty-Five

He sits beneath a withered flag,
bones tired from promises he never kept.
Once, he roared with pride,
green and white stitched into his chest like hope.
Now, his breath smells of condemned oil and rust,
his face all darkened with soot, 
eyes clouded by smoke from fires he lit himself.

They call him "Fatherland"
but what father forgets the taste of his children’s hunger?
What father strikes his children for asking why the house leaks,
then calls it discipline,
calls it patriotism,
calls it love?

His palms are cracked from gripping too much power,
his voice hoarse from endless speeches,
the kind that promises rain
and deliver drought.

He tried to build cities and forgot their names,
buried his daughters in promises of light,
and taught his sons to kneel before thieves
and call it respect.

Now, at sixty-five,
he mutters to himself in the dark,
counting the ghosts of coups and rigged elections.
His children look away,
building rafts from his broken fences,
sailing anywhere the wind calls freedom.

Still, they carry his blood,
his impatience,
his corruption,
his blind faith in tomorrow that he hasn't planned for

And he watches them,
those restless offspring,
mirrors of his own undoing,
each one becoming
the father they swore
they would never be.

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