blur – a poem by tyler bey

Blur By:

Tyler Bey

I can’t feel it

What I know as home is fading to grey

Sometimes it visits

Like an estranged father

But is never here to stay

The lines bleed like ink in rain

Figures stand out in the fog

Some are memories, the rest blur

Their voices static

Their hands bleed from quitting

And Home folds away the pull out couch

My family is botched fabric work

Father’s cut out

Oblong pieces try to fill the shape

And the rework is cut out

I am only familiar with half of my face

My brother’s piece rips

He’s too young to know

That our fabrics only intersect once

Your Papa is not mine

Your Father is not mine

Your Aunti is not mine

Your Home is not mine

I’m sorry you were born in poor patches

But it is tradition:

Soon, when I leave,

A step brother who is not mine,

Will beseem the tear I leave you

And the lines of my face will blur