" Rebel "

Tormented by loneliness born to my heart,
I sink in an emotional sea with no shores.
remembering my childhood memories- forever
embedded in nostalgia,
but with no recognition of the laughter
or voices that echo so intimately
my name.
With misty eyes and forgotten reminiscences
I stand.
Vapid in soul but through willpower for living
against the unlawful mercilessness of a struggling planet.
Blind to the sight of innocence,
infected to the blood with crime,
I seek no pity for the lost soul that I am;
broken
by the poverty that threatens my life.
Ever pondering
what another teenager is thinking,
ever wondering
if my pain is a curse I threw upon myself.
Choking with each hard word swallowed,
each grave moment of insults
inflicted.
Breathing steady for the next promised opportunity
to emerge
metamorphosis
into a stronger rebel for
individuality that I seek to be.

" Father II"

Tracing your footprints, always too deep,
always much larger, distant, and steep.
Listening to words that you forced me to hear,
only now to repeat them to a child or a peer.
Laughing your laugh, smiling your smile,
recurring your actions with the greatest denial…
Remembering your strictness in difference
since I questioned your punishments with innocence.
How I dreaded your gaze, how I withdrew when you spoke,
Fearing your rules I could never revoke.
Laughing your laugh, smiling your smile,
wondering how- I now mirror your style…
Watching the fires that burned in your veins,
the day I left home, like freedom from chains-
I was swearing to God that I'd be different from you
that things that I saw were from never your view.
But laughing your laugh, and now smiling your smile
when did I realize that after awhile
I would walk in your footsteps, not knowing alone
that the footprints I followed were none but your own.

                                                          Thomas Cristopher Yu