What can I do that will ever make you proud?
You are after all the smartest,
most principled person that I know.
How many letters, periods
and commas follow your name?
And to think that it took me over twenty
years to figure out that you were the best role
model a kid could have, but by then my myopic
pride had already burned your bridge
and was holding me fast on the far side
of your life as I stood alone wanting
to give you "the hug".  The embrace that would try
and thank you for giving so much of yourself
without ever asking for anything in return;
for making me proud to have you as my father,
for never feeling worthy of being called your son.
What could I possibly do to make you proud?

What can I do that will ever make you proud?
I tried learning everything I could.
I tried playing so many insignificant roles:
the mogul, the rogue, the bleeding heart,
the tortured intellectual, never knowing
which of these would ever earn me
a round of applause in the one heart
that I have hurt so often and left
so many times without even a grudging
'thank you' for all you have given up
so that I; so that pitiful, pathetic I,
could have the very best that life has to offer.
What could I possibly do to make you proud?

What can I do that will ever make you proud?
Never really knowing who I really was until
I started crawling away from pride,
my foolish cavern of cravings and desire.
Never really asking advice because I could
never really understand the answer:
never really knowing what made me happy.
Never really knowing who you were
until AFTER I had gone away,
then feeling ashamed of who I was,
and wanting nothing more than to make you smile.
What could I possibly do to make you proud?

What can I do that will ever make you proud?
I never bothered to think what you
were dealing with, what you
were going through and what your
feelings were because I was too caught up
in my own little world of pity, doubt
and feeling alone; believing you wouldn’t care
what was in my heart anyway. I wanted to talk,
but was afraid that the shallow depth
of what was in my heart would make you laugh,
so instead I cut you out of my life.
What could I possibly do to make you proud?

I think all that it took was to hear that I was finally happy.
Thanks for letting me back in Dad.