I wouldn’t make much sense if I told you I miss myself. I haven’t gone anywhere. I am the same uprooted dandelion, the same echo in an empty hall. I am hung on a nail like the old pictures in a church no one has dusted since creation. I am the old rain that comes in summer and carries laughter like a child carries pocket dust and sticky fingers. I am loose change sitting in sidewalk cracks next to cigerette butts. Every day I breathe the earth like I’ve run out of oxygen, I’ve only ever found comfort under his name. I wonder how long it will be until I learn how to spell out what the lightening bugs have whispered to me in between the dead cranberries buried beneath the sand.
I spent my 25th summer alone, trying to cure this house of hiccups and bruised ego. It smells of spiced apple and cat food, its hard to explain how easy it is to regurgitate memories in place of making room for growth. I dont have access to the rope around my neck, Im hanging onto hope. I plucked flowers from my mouth the night I slept in grief. I curled my body between my soft spots, my fingers devoured my skin. I think I died in September and rose again in ash - I cannot get ocean water off my tongue. I think you were filling the silence so my head would stop aching. If I could, I would forget your name in avalanche dreams, but I have forgotten how to close my eyes. I’ve nothing left but blood in my hands where my heart had been, I think the birds took it away. I think the wind pushed me to rivers and summer grass, I wasn’t breathing.
I learned how to tie my shoe, and how to ride a bike. I learned that coffee can never be too sweet, that the sound of your voice will always be sweeter. I learned how to hold hands, to jump so high it takes so long for my feet to reach the ground it feels like Im falling off the earth. You taught me to let the sun sit on my tongue, that home is loving myself. And kindness is more than saying please and thank you, and there are times I will be very wrong.
I learned how to swim under cedar water, I learned how to walk in sunlight. I learned the sun is just as strong in December as it is in July, you just dont feel it all the time. I am just as strong crying on my bathroom floor when I forget how to walk outside. I learned that once in a while I am capable of being so in love with myself. I skipped rocks and slept under trees, I melted into the ground. I learned I can exist without you. I dont want to. I have stretched myself carelessly thin looking for your ghost. I forgot where I put you last.
Papa in my dreams I am bathed in blue eyes and Irish bones.
God, if you have him in your palms, rock him slow, so he can sleep in the warmth of the sunlight. So by the time he wakes up I have come back home
Love you dad.
