‘After losing my Dad on this day 7 years ago, I feel pretty angry at all the things I didn’t get to share with him.’

I don’t share much poetry but I wanted to write this to show that when someone dies it’s not just the good times you remember. Sometimes you remember bad things, sometimes you don’t just feel sad or depressed, sometimes you feel angry. I wanted to post this so people know that it’s okay to be angry too. After losing my Dad on this day 7 years ago, I feel pretty angry at all the things I didn’t get to share with him.

Where were you?

You’ve been gone for so long, I can’t help notice all the things you’ve missed out on.

I got my my blue belt two weeks after you left me, it should have been a celebration but at the time it felt empty.

Since then I got purple, I’ve won some fights and stood on the podium, but you never got to see it.

I had to buy a house on my own and you didn’t help, I got my job in Radio that you saw me work hard for but you didn’t get to see me achieve any of it.

Where were you when I got my dogs and cats, you’ve never even been inside my house and seen the family we started.

You didn’t see the mess I became when you parted.

Where were you for the panic attacks? Where were you for the thoughts of giving up, when I became so tired that I no longer gave a fuck, about carrying on fighting through the days.

When you left all that was left was pain, I felt numb to the world, incapable of love, incapable of living in so many ways.

I was angry at life and even angrier with death and I felt angry towards you because of the mess you left. My pain became a cloud that followed me around but instead of rain it just poured sadness down.

Your death brought disease, depression clouded my head but it’s hard to stay angry at someone who’s dead.

But that’s the whole point isn’t it, the anger is because you left. Without a goodbye, that’s the fucking hardest part and even though I try, at 7 years on I’m actually doing really well. I’m so much better now when before I was just a shell.

A shell of the person that I remembered, because that version of Paul, he died when you did. A new guy was born and he was one I hated, full of regret, anxiety and depression, full of complaints and negativity. And that’s who I’ve been for the past 7 years but time still moves on and I have to get better, better than the old me, better than the me now. Got to get better in any way I can. Because where the hell were you when this boy became a man.

7 years has passed and you’ve missed so much, what’s in store for the next 7years and the 7 after that, memories and moments that we won’t get to share, but that’s the weird part, because deep down I still know you’re there. You’re a part of me that I take everywhere I go, so when something great happens I hope that you know that whilst I’m upset and angry, I still miss you every day, and even though we feel a million miles away, when you died it tore a hole in my heart, but that hole is filled with our memories and I guess that means we’ll never be too far apart.