My father had a face he made
when I did something soft.
I knew it before I could name it.
The slight shift. The almost-nothing
that was everything to a boy watching
for signs of whether he was acceptable.
I was a dreamer.
I liked poetry and dancing
and playing in worlds I invented.
Not that. Not here. Not you.
So I packed the softness away
and became the other things —
steady, reliable, always on time.
The things that earned the nod.
The absence of that face.
But the dreamer never left.
He just went underground.
And for years I went looking
for the person who would receive
what my father couldn't.
Someone whose face would say —
And everyone I wanted to get close to
was carrying that same impossible weight —
the weight of having to undo
what a father did
before they even knew my name.
That's not fair to them.
It took me a long time to see that.
My father gave me what he had.
Both of those men live in me now.
The practical one keeps me grounded.
The dreamer wrote this poem.
my softness was never the problem.
It was always the point.
If you hid your softness to be acceptable —
this one is for you. 🖤