Father Days

while I normally prefer to
focus upon the negative

i decided to this father’s day
to accentuate the positive
latch on to the affirmative
and so it goes …
what I like about being a father

i like that there’s someone with skinnier arms than me

i like café-ing with them
and pretending that they are my business associates

that I can say whatever I want
whose going to tell a father what not to say

that I get to blow up
traditional gender roles
bullshit racial stereotypes
in front of them

i like that they have to listen to my jokes, I like gags that run for years

that look they get
when they don’t know
what I’m going to do next

the ability to refashion
my neuroses as arbitrary rules,
like no jumping before 10:30
or no touching the bus seat
or you shouldn't ever buy anthing over 6 dollars

that time when wyatt was like,
“virgil, come to the bathroom
and look at daddy’s huge penis”
i don’t actually have a huge penis,
i know this because when I asked my wife she said,
she’d handled bigger.
she didn’t say “handled” of course, but I couldn’t resist dialing up images of jen,
Big Cock wrangler, with her Levi’s and Prada bag,
where was I? Oh yeah …
I remember seeing my dad’s
johnson in the bathroom one time
and really being intimidated by it
that thing was like a
2 liter bottle of dr. pepper.

i like that I get to know everything

it’s nice to walk to the grocery store with them in the evening,
old lady passers by like,
"aw, you’re such a good father"
and they don’t even suspect
what a jerk I am,
old ladies are suckers.

i like being able to hold hands with somebody, and not have it feel corny.

i’m pretty proud of the fact
that I taught them most of the dirty
words that they know,
and all of the best combos

flying into fits of manufactured rage, then feeling guilty about it.

refering to myself as
“your old man”.

i like that I get to make up the things that give you cancer,
like diet soda,
sitting too close to the television,
any food boxes with cartoon characters

I like looking into my child’s eyes
and seeing all the magic inside,
blah, blah, blah

mostly, i like knowing that if something ever happened to me
that someone would be really messed up about it,
that I’d be mythologized
as this omniscient feminist iconoclast
jerk packing a gigantic member.

Happy father’s day to all.