Heirloom

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You try your hardest to leave the past alone.

This crooked posture is all you’ve ever known.

It is the consequence of living in between

the weight of family and the pull of gravity.

You are so much more than your father’s son.

You are so much more than what I’ve become.

Long before you were born there was light

hidden deep in these young, unfamiliar eyes.

A million choices, though little on their own,

become the heirloom of the heaviness you’ve known.

You are so much more than your father’s son.

You are so much more than what I’ve become,

what I've become,

what I’ve become.

You pressed rewind

for the thousandth time

when the tapes wore through.

So you memorised

those unscripted lines,

desperate for some kind of clue:

When the scale tipped,

when you inherited

a fight that you were born to lose.

It’s not your fault,

no, it’s not your fault,

I put this heavy heart in you.

I put this heavy heart in you.

You remind me of who I could have been,

had I been stronger and braver way back then.

A million choices, though little on their own,

became the heirloom of the heaviness we’ve known.

You are so much more than your father’s son.

You are so much more than the wars you’ve won.

You are so much more than your father’s son.

You are so much more than what I’ve become.

by Ryan O’Neal (Sleeping at Last)