Poems are allowed to blur their edges,
but I will not hide behind metaphor —
I want these words to stand bare,
so you can understand,
and I can witness the truth of my own hurt.
I have come to a quiet realization:
I have lost you.
Not to death —
but to distance that breath still cannot cross.
My father still walks the earth,
yet the father I knew
and the child I was to him
have faded like a photograph left in the sun.
You are still here —
but not here for me
the way you once were.
You have grown into a new life,
a new home,
a new father to a new family —
whom I love,
and for whom I have folded my sorrow small
and kept it hidden in my chest
so your happiness would not tremble.
Still, it aches —
to learn that what I believed was forever
was only a season,
already past,
already gone.
















