Just Like My Old Man

Note: My aunt Ann gave me a giant box of her old poems and notebooks (most of which are intended for me to write in, as most are blank), and asked me to read her work for inspiration. She knows that I write music, and thought it might be cool to put a melody to her lyrics. Now, this box has been sitting in the corner of my room for quite some time, collecting dust, and I had the urge to read through some of her stuff, looking for inspiration for my blog post. Nothing of substance was coming to mind for my "creative writing" piece; I could write a dark poem about how I feel sometimes, or about that secret girlfriend that my parents are NOT ALLOWED to find out about, or maybe some magical, fantasy or sci-fi short story, but nothing really spoke to me. In the box, I was expecting to find little scribbles and possibly cringey material, but to my pleasant surprise, I found a short poem titled "For Michael". It captured the image of my father as a free-willed and hyper child, and as I read, I started finding similarities. And now, I've been inspired to write a poem about how I'm just a smaller, paler version of my good-old dad.
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Ann left me a box of memories
None of which I thought would speak to me
I let them sit in the corner
The pages thrown out of order
I quickly forgot about her box
as the months passed on the clock
Then came an urging thought
and on the words my eyes locked
I started flipping through the pages,
reliving my aunt's life through the ages
On the floor, a small paper fell,
a poem meant for Michael
I pondered reading for a while
but gave in- I wanted to know my father as a child
She wrote about his jutting, gapped teeth,
and how he always spoke to trees
And in my mind, I began to see,
that she was really writing about me
My dad was such a wild child, but a good one nonetheless
Ann says that to have him in her life, she was truly blessed
I can't say that I'm a prodigy,
but I won't lie, just as he
He would always tell glorious stories
and was best friends with his brother Billy
To him, blood is thicker than water, still
All his sibling's heart's he'd fill
even Jackie, up above
I also want to just spread love
My father always tells me I'm like his dad
I never met him, I wish I had
But it's he who's just like his old man
the one to tell me is my aunt Ann
She knew his teeth would straighten and his face would grow
And they did; I should know
The piece of paper which read "For Michael"
might be just the same if it read "For Mel"