# Optimism at 3.00 a.m.

By [thepinkpanther](https://paragraph.com/@thepinkpanther) · 2022-04-04

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![Peter Pink-Howitt, "blood-letting of sorts", algo-art 2022 CE](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/d2b803681e5f73f9c0e3fb97e3b00e6b1c0c9d24a32170293a6d6092b7c1dad5.jpg)

Peter Pink-Howitt, "blood-letting of sorts", algo-art 2022 CE

"_Something to do with violence a long way back_

_and wrong rewards and arrogant eternity_"

(Phillip Larkin)

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A blood-letting of sorts

heralded your first day here.

Prehistoric beast that you seemed in your fear.

\*\*\*

Fear that needed, needs still, a little more

than a kick in the teeth and three words to heal.

\*\*\*

Confusion inevitably ensued,

and the twisted fears turn us all inside-out,

or rather, they skew our futures with incessant demands,

for a placation we may never fully discover.

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OK think! (you were warned early on)

Come on, on your feet......I lie.

More like:

You bas-havethis-fuckyou-hateyou-

loveme-alllovewefuckinghateall

....loveyouson.

\*\*\*

Though the last three words,

came so much later than you ever deserved.

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Hardly surprising the confusion never dissipated,

but mutated,

in your sense of what it was you might allow yourself to become.

I suppose that's enough of that, a little of what I can imagine.

\*\*\*

But what I am trying to say is that,

perhaps I can hold fast enough to make an attempt,

(full-hearted and half-arsed as it may be -

as most things are condemned to be)

an attempt to retract from blame and recrimination,

to slow the continual clockwork of hurt

and ask something simple.

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Can we try and make sense of it as Father and Son?

\*\*\*

Though you can never have your Dad back,

to ask some questions or talk,

and I don't expect miracles

\-us holding hands as we walk

into a bright new dawn-

\*\*\*

Can we just try

to use both our heads,

to recover some reasons

for the blood-letting of sorts,

that permeates both our lives

and which leaves us with words to try and heal

reality as we've known it,

as we approach it...

[https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/70756795188882102134844406292945300059037380610701090253316037112408584486913](https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/70756795188882102134844406292945300059037380610701090253316037112408584486913)

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*Originally published on [thepinkpanther](https://paragraph.com/@thepinkpanther/optimism-at-3-00-a-m)*