The Son Of Tyrants Poem by David Welch

I was born in far Morsania,
a small, backwater Eurasian state,
known to most folk in this wide world
for my grandfather's prodigious hate.

My given name is Jocefeus,
but I mostly go by Joe these days,
because that tyrant grandpa and I
unfortunately share a name.

I have no real memory of him,
I was a baby when my mom left,
only learned later his many crimes:
genocide, mass rape, and great theft.

He's taxed the Morsanian people dry
to live out his depraved lifestyle,
snatched women to be his concubines
until too broken to defile.

Five hundred thousand people he killed
through starvation, work camps, or purge.
His sons, my uncles, were just as bad,
killed and raped when they got the urge.

But he also had a daughter too,
for she is the mother of me,
some claim that he did the deed himself,
so great was his depravity…

Of course I knew nothing of that
until I was well out of my youth,
and decided that I should never
look into whether this was truth.

Lucky for me, I got to grow up
in the good ol' American way,
since my mother stowed in a freight train,
in Morsania she would not stay.

When she found a U.S. embassy
she begged for them to let us in,
promise that she would spill all her guts,
that she would tell them everything.

That's how we gained our asylum,
it was quite the intelligence coup,
grandpa did rage, but with the U.S.
he was wise enough not to screw.

So I was raised, quite loved and quite safe,
just a happy American kid,
me and ma then got citizenship,
and she openly cherished it.

I even enlisted at age eighteen,
I did two tours and then mustered out,
at twenty-three I then asked myself:
"What does life have in store for me now?

Got a job working in logistics
and met a fine girl named Lorelei,
it was infectious for two fast years...
all the love that I saw in her eyes.

Before long we had gotten engaged,
but before the trip to the altar,
I decided she needed to know
so at dinner I spoke those hard words.

I wasn't sure what I should expect,
she just looked up, disgusted with me,
tried to explain I had been a babe,
but her face just screwed up with fury.

She called me ‘killer, ' then she stormed out,
I felt as if I had been run through,
she didn't seem me as a person,
didn't fit in with her point-of-view.

Making things worse, she went to the press!
She grave them the exclusive scoop,
about her time spent with a ‘monster, '
it threw my whole world for a loop.

Reporters swarmed, the rabid jackals,
around my house they made a big crowd,
even harassed my poor old mother
to the point she could barely go out.

I growled loud at more than a few,
got one locked up for trespassing,
thankfully they found other nonsense
and the frenzy wasn't long-lasting.

But the damage had truly been done,
the internet will never forget,
I was practically a murderer,
commenters publicly wished me dead.

My love life soon faded to nothing,
barely went on two dates in three years,
more than one time, I'm ashamed to say,
I wondered why I remained here?

With people just judging by the group,
and my ‘group' was my family ties,
condemned for things that I never did,
forever doomed to be despised.

Until one spring day this Christian girl
saw my profile and then swiped right.
I didn't have high expectations,
but decided to go out that night.

Her name was Ester, when I saw her
I decided then on a new play,
told her about me, all right upfront,
then waited for what she would say.

She just smiled back, a knowing grin,
said, "I knew who you were from the start.
Had worries at first, then I recalled
the memories that plague my own heart.

"You see my father is a bad man,
used his fists and caused me to despair,
beat up my mother so very bad
she is forever bound to a chair.

"He is in jail now, for forty years,
but I am not to blame for his sins.
So who was I to disparage you?
I have no idea what lies within.

"No one should ever be held to blame
for something that's beyond their control.
I'm not my dad, and you're no tyrant,
what you are I'd like to get to know."

For the first time in so many months
I felt new hope spring up in my mind.
I'm Ester's husband, seven years on,
no finer woman can you find.

We have two kids, a suburban house,
a big one with a three-car garage,
when media comes, I let her loose,
they go scurrying from the barrage.

I no longer worry all that much
about what other people say,
I am no killer, just a father,
so let the useless talking heads bray.

They all just see my evil grandpa,
and never truly will understand,
maybe I was born son of tyrants,
but I myself am a good man.

…and they will not take that from me.