My name is Nick Hilbourn, professional English major and, regrettably, a father.

If you’re like me, then you dearly regret having children. Although they are precious and wonderful when they first claw their way out of a woman’s vaginal cavity – by age one, they are detestable.

The leggy blonde behind the microphone clears her throat one final time. The capacity crowd—already restless in anticipation of the first pitch on Opening Day—struggles to temper themselves. The players line the base paths, hats over hearts, shifting their weight from leg to leg as nerves tighten. Finally, a silky but dynamic voice fills the stadium.

I want to talk about hunger.

There’s an old saying that you may have heard. Too often we miss the forest for the trees. Because: there are too many goddamn trees. So many trees, way too many trees. That’s why the humane thing to do is to allow hunters to periodically and metaphorically “prune” them, because sometimes—maybe even most of the time—the only way to save something is to kill it.

Dan is my best friend but sometimes I catch him picking his nose and flicking his boogers at my windshield.

“Stop doing that. I can see you.”

“I didn’t—“

“I saw you!”

But now he’s depressed so when I catch him I don’t make fun of him for it as much.

Much like the speaker in Plath’s poem “Daddy,” Leia must be sorting through some daddy issues of her own. Just look at Vader’s hand clutching her shoulder as they watch Alderaan being disintegrated; and what exactly went on between Leia, Vader and that interrogation probe behind the closed blast door of her cell? Discovering that your hated captor and torturer was your father all along is the stuff confessional poetry was made for.