Here's your annotated story according to the provided key:
Gift-Wrapped Fathers
Poem by Eduardo (Echo) Martinez
Yellow: Main ideas and topic sentences.
An imprisoned parent struggles to maintain a bond with his son.
Green: Supporting details and examples.
you were there for his cute banana Gerber gibberish but gone before words cartwheeled off his tongue
you held him up in your arms and showed him off to the world like Simba
Hakuna Matata days before you fell like timber
he made a convenience store out of your heart open all night
eyes baby monitor ears by the bedside alert and on patrol to any sound
one minute microwave milk runs wrist drop temperature checks proud diaper changes
then baby wiped your own tears when the chains came
while he was being potty-trained you paced in pain inside a cemented port-a-potty
two syllables of a baby's vocab "PAPI" traveling through a sour tapped phone line
you know, the scene you always view in jail house flicks
palm pressed to palm is true
what they don't show you is the Plexi-glass aftermath
your reflection on the opposite side place a hand on a mirror's glass
pretend it's skin and try not to cry
by the time you're convicted and sentenced to prison you've missed his first step and birthdays
he's a toddler now and you're still studying
to be a better father than the one you had.
scared to answer your own questions
while piggy backin' a mocking Orangutan one wearing a loud black market Rolex with a bootleg tick like a backpack bomb biting your shoulders
you become a terrorist to your emotions terrorized by self-inflicted "what-if's"
praying to one day see your son rise then your son set
but these cell blocks pull pieces from your soul like Lego blocks
every time your visit finishes
playing chicken with a dim light through tunnel vision
as you sway your way back towards a cage where you'll lay and replay every detail you've captured during the 5 hours you've waited 6 months for
as the only people that really love you make a quiet 7 hour ride back home
to a house that once was alive with your potential, now it's haunted by each visit
he's grown inches "Papi" is now "Dad" yet you still talk to him in lullaby
the natural life kind where good-bye is a common thing
some will portray a portrait of you as a bad guy
some will portray a portrait of you as a bad guy so you try not to be the bad guy
as you build a bond over a 15 minute collect call
while another man pretends to be his father not cause he loves your son but out of spite
cause he looks like you even down talks to you so baby boy doesn't look up to you
for birthdays and holidays he receives your gifts of apologies so many of them that he no longer opens them
sometimes, he hugs you like a homeboy maybe cause he's tired of you saying that one day, you'll be home
boy another Lego block removed another tick terrorizing emotion
another Simba grown without his Mufasa
Father's day hurts so you write in second person
cause you feel like that's the kind of father you've been
cause you never should have been here in the first place
but with him just another father gift-wrapped in sorry
hoping his son opens up to him
Pink: Definitions of key terms or vocabulary.
PAPI: A term of endearment in Spanish, typically meaning "daddy."
Lullaby: A soothing song, often sung to children at bedtime.
Blue: Important dates, names, or events.
Father's Day (event)
Simba: A character from Disney's "The Lion King" representing a son.
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