Breath. 
That's all it took.
A moan, a heave,
exhalation.
No in.
Just a silence.

Then he dies again,
in my eyes,
in the eyes of a young boy,
idolising,
canonising every word
like it was life.
Believing that there before me
was the source,
The answer,
The tangible truth,
tappable.

He was my Lord,
My Maker,
My Strong Tower.
Unassailably right 
about everything,
and always 
a voice at my shoulder.
Who else could I ever need?

But a dead voice cannot speak.
And the veil,
as it falls,
enlightens too.
I see him
for the first time,
clearly.
Not God.
Not right.
Not in control.
Of the world,
Of me,
Of himself.

And never sorry.

Just as the boy
watches his infallible father's body 
weaken and fail 
in those final days,
so the young man
in the years hence,
witnesses
The fact of his betrayal.
The weakness of his strength,
The lie of his truth,
The wrong of his righteousness,
The hollow
patheticness
of his cowardice
to face his own wounds.
Rather, inflict them 
upon a child,
and in doing so,
push them deeper
into himself.
Into his bones;
To eat away at his very marrow,
until they - like blind Samson
who was thought a prisoner -
bring down the temple from within. 

The first death
caused by the second. 
But in both, his inability
to breathe in 
the oxygen of reality
is what steals life from him.

I watch him stop.
And go.
Leaving me alone,
just like I had asked.
Even though it's not what I want.
Don't leave me alone.
Stay and fight.
Stay and take responsibility
Own your mistakes 
And become the father I need. 

But he won't.
He's gone.

The pillars
have crumbled,
tumbled,
and fallen.
Leaving dust,
dirt.
Clouds of asphyxiation
plume 
to choke me,
to fill my eyes.

Like Christ's mud,
it serves to end my blindness:

He was 
only
a man.

As I am.

So I look for
a twofold resurrection. 
But the one that presses most 
is Man, the archetype.
Redeem him
Resurrect him
Restore him
In my eyes
In me.