Han Solo Confronts Fatherhood In Six Parts​

I.
I, scoundrel.
space rat.
smuggler. Not
father. Doesn’t sound right. Not
general, just
generally good. Sometimes,
not even that.

II.
When we woke up,
slick with sweat
and full of force, she
walked from the bedside
said she felt a ripple.
I prayed
it was only a ripple,
not an oncoming flood.
it turned out to be both,
all in one baby boy

III.
The cradle I built with my own hands
was all rusted metal and wood.
Imperfect, I
grew this thing
to make you a home.
I would have built so many more
if they had any hope
of holding back
all this tidal rush and black hair
of you

IV.
We named you after a man
who walked soft on the dunes of Tatooine,
carried regrets like hymns.
recited them to the suns
went to sleep in the quiet
of their twin setting
The first night you slept quiet,
I thought you were taking
after your namesake.
But Ben was his second name,
and your first. How could I have been so foolish
to think that you would keep our first loud mistake.
I, the outlaw, playing at father,
you, the baby pawing at crib.
Both so new in these lives.

V.
Maybe you shook the scoundrel out of me
or maybe I was seeing you for the first time
as something born of your mother,
so much more regal
and terrifying
than I. And I loved you,
as only a broken man could,
softening
with every breath

VI.
You left before I did
but I can’t shake that
maybe I passed on broken to you,
like a genetic footprint.
maybe your mother and I’s
ark of a family was
stifling, and you
couldn’t breathe right in it-
we just wanted to quell all of your crashing,
cradle you in something made of good work,
and strong love
show you that history does not cut a family apart
but only burns the scars into cauterization. I was wrong
about this. The scars never really healed,
you took to worshipping them,
called demons home to us.
I can’t shake that
maybe I taught you home
comes in the breaking,
in the leaving,
in the running away.