Apples

 

 

Parents sometimes feel a kind of impotent disappointment in themselves, when their children begin to exhibit characteristics, which their parents regard, as their own most embarrassing or shameful.   We hear the voice of such a parent in this poem.

The voice may seem a little harsh, but it is no more cruel or self-condemning, than many of the voices that we hear from time to time in our own heads. 

Perhaps the problem lies not in ourselves but in the old adage, and its absolutely fatalistic message. 

I like to think that human beings today have more self-determination and free will, than this poem implies.  Good luck to all parents, as they try, both to forgive themselves, for their many human failings, and to not project their futile quest for perfection upon the next generation.  

Thanks for stopping by to read!

 

I’ve taught you all

My prime techniques,

My secrets for

Self-loathing.

You’ve gotten all

The best of me.

The apple never falls

Far from the tree.

 

Surrounding you:

My wrongest turns,

My errors and

Reproaches.

You can’t escape

This nest of me.

The apple never falls

Far from the tree.

 

I’d change my habits

If I could,

And change a

Generation

Imprinted on me,

Spawn of me.

The apple never falls

Far from the tree.

 

My psychic doubting,

Shouting me;

The donut-shoveling,

Groveling me;

The hesitating,

Grating me;

Impatient,

Irritating me;

Ingratiating,

Hating

Me;

The apple never falls

Far from the tree.

 

Copyright 2020 Andrea LeDew

 

For more self-assessments by disturbing characters, living and dead, see my short fiction The Light Monk and Them Falls.