Learning How to Feel from Friday Night Lights

Feeling is innate

Image by Fernando Cabral

I never cared about it
until I was shown how to care.
He left 2 years in,
so how was I supposed to care,
so I cared about what was there.
Just the three of us;
Mum, brother Ben and I
no one else to care about,
how easy,
how freeing,
how nonchalant I was
being about it being
just the three of us.
I never cared about it being
just the three of us
until I was shown how I care
on a high-school drama
American football
TV show.

I never cared
until I was shown how I care
by a boy on a show /
by Saracen on Friday Night Lights /
he never cared
seemingly
until he lost his father.
There he stands
in the living room
with his girlfriend's family.
“I hated him,”
he confessed
a confession I had said
if not just to myself,
“I don’t like hating him”
a truth I recognised
not knowing
I knew all along.

There I am
in the bed
watching a show.
As a boy breaks down
in the living room
of his girlfriend's house,
another boy breaks down,
in the bed,
in the realisation
of the pain he holds inside
— of the pain he directs to one —
I turned to my mother,
“I miss my dad”
four words never uttered
out my mouth,
but broken walls
no longer hold
what’s inside.

A deep pain followed…

I remember,
tears streaming
and a heavy feeling
on my chest
one I hadn’t felt before,
not maybe since my Pops died
(Mum’s Father)
when I lost that man
I missed him truly
I just didn’t realise
through the hate
I missed another man
I lost far earlier.

© H. R. Sinclair 2025

I never used to care about my dad not being there. With no memories as a kid, it was just easier that way. I’d come to find out, however, that I was just ignoring a lot of stuff.

He’s in my life now. In a way. There’s residual stuff there, similar stuff that I was ignoring as a kid, I’d guess.

Families are complicated. Emotions are complicated. Life is complicated.

Love to you all,

H. R. Sinclair