As a child I didn’t understand why my father would lash out  

and then cool off and apologize,  

an impending storm walking around my home,  

willing itself to release its combust energy,  

one day to the next he was battling a non-physical entity -  

one who held enough power to control his body and his mind,  

spreading this uneasy feeling to everyone in the home. 

 

I didn’t understand why until I was in his place,  

struggling with the same storm of my own -  

surrounded by a darkness like the sky before it cries,  

thinking therapy was a far-fetched idea and unattainable,  

a short term solution to the long term problem  

that was the way my mind works.  

 

A simple chemical imbalance connects my father and I -  

a bond that only we understand,  

an unspoken look or a feeling in the air  

tells more than any words could.  

For this I am grateful -  

a human who knows what goes through my mind like a telepath,  

even when my emotions overflow like water over a dam,  

causing devastation to all of those around.  

And yet -  

he loves me,  

because I understand him too.