Work Text:
I cast a small shadow.
It doesn’t help that I’m barely five feet tall
And that’s with shoes, socks, and all.
My exuberant joy and childish naivety
Used to make up for it,
Stretching my shadow as far as it can go
In hopes that it can match the rest.
But lately that joy and wonder is fading away
Causing my thoughts to darken
And my shadow to shrink
In a hall of shadows mine is the smallest.
I barely darken a corner.
~~
I cast a small shadow
For someone now over six feet tall.
I shot up in height and my shadow refused to follow me.
It languishes in that corner regardless if I’m there or not;
An ever present looming presence dogging at my heels
That I can never escape.
I am no longer that person
And yet my shadow barely grows.
I see it in the eyes of my family
And the effects my shadow has had on them,
Very little.
But my shadow is the darkest even if the smallest.
It has made an impact
Even when I wasn’t here to say what kind.
Coming back now I see the cast of shadows that have joined my own
and the previous Ones I tried to live up to
Stretching high and long towards the ceiling
Like my predecessor
While mine barely hits the wall.
I am no longer that child
But his shadow still remains.
Sometimes it feels as if that shadow is all they ever see,
Casting a dark reflection on me
Overshadowing the man I am today
Obscuring me from view.
Ironic to say dark reflection when most days it feels like it was the lightest part of me
Left to fester and die and yet it still remains
In the eyes of those around me.
But now I see that it’s been twisted and altered,
My shadow now a tale of sorrow and woe
Of danger and recklessness
In the eyes of those who came after me.
I am no longer who I was
But who I was has changed in my absence.
I am no longer that little boy my father loved and lost
But instead transformed into something else:
Angry and reckless
Maker of grief
A caution tale
A tale of warning to the newer generation.
At least to those who had heard of me
Which in our line of work was surprisingly little.
I cast a small shadow
One so small
To the outside world
It barely existed.
A being so full of love and joy
Confined to a case and plaque
A gravestone with the wrong name
No happy stories
No pictures on the wall
My true representation
Of all my faults and facets is gone
I just have my small dark shadow.
In my effort to cast a new one
It seems like all I do is fit in that small one
That has changed without my knowledge.
“Of course he would act this way
Look at how angry his shadow was.”
Will I ever be my own man again?
Judged accurately based on the person standing in front of you
As opposed to that young boy that died?
Who came back only wanting his dad
But was devastated to find that his father never wanted him.
Replaced and demonized and feeling betrayed
I came back.
I may have come back wrong and changed
But you have changed too, father
You just fail to acknowledge it.
I cast a small shadow
And it seems like I will never escape it.