how does one cease
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
when the heart
incessantly reminds
us how goddamn
good this
gravity feels?
Microwavable popcorn and Indiana Jones on Saturday afternoons in springtime are Daddy before he got sick.
Scorched kernels stretch estranged daughters, bending away from nostalgic niches, curling into man-made, concave, facades of reality.
She does not believe in relationships.
Daddy’s unconditional love became burdened with stipulations, twelve years had struck him weary -
Self-proclaimed landlord, he evicted himself from the homestead, moved away from Parenthood, and took up residence in the hollow of his own cracking breastplate.
Bemoaning paternal cowardice, his daughter fined him for loitering in the twisted realm of his mind, she berated him for his belated behavior, forgetting her became his favorite activity.
She still succumbs to the sadness.
When she watches him lounging on tactile couches stained with discolored, childhood memories, she wishes life into Laundress, bleaching the blemishes of feigned fathers from the aching hearts of undeserving daughters.
His actions are not erasable, irreplaceable, the patriarchal anchor is unstable -
and she wonders -
Will she stop rejecting boyfriends, and start accepting best friends as lovers instead, or is she doomed to a lifetime of self loathing and irreparable relationships?
Unable to hear above the washing machine cycle of jaw-maligning, popcorn crunching and Indiana Jones, her broken father has no answer.
A direct response to the recent passing of North Carolina’s “First Amendment.” Have a little pride, people.
memories are fiery infernos,
burn me softly.
smiles are ashen aftertastes,
mock me gently.
our love is a hurricane,
drown me slowly.
I have a miniature lisp. This makes me slightly inarticulate, and maybe my words are not taken as seriously as someone who does not stutter, or stumble. I am human. I falter between sentences, and my breathing believes in inconsistency because my lungs are too small to have good faith in things unseen.
Writing is my oxygen, and tonight, you are my inspiration, playing the dual roles of inkwell and fountain pen. I have shied away from preaching to you about support systems and best friendships because, frankly, I do not think you know enough. I blame myself because, I think I mask things too much. I think we think excessively, for this, I am irresistibly sorry.
My memory fails me, and I do not know how to tell you that you were the best thing to happen to me at fifteen,
and sixteen,
and seventeen.
They say the similarities are striking. We could be not-quite-siblings, but cousins in the right light, brandishing our bravest smiles. But they are blind men, fumbling for facial features at twilight, their palms do not dip beneath the surface.
After all, who blames a sightless man for ignorance of physicality? We are similar in mindset, in humor, in perseverance, in loyalty, in humility, we are similar.
They say.
Those philosophies are hearsay.
We say.
When I forgot my own name, you remembered how to use it, slipped it across your tongue and called me out of my own self-loathing mire, you saved me, but I have a tendency not to tell you these things, because I am afraid.
I am afraid of my shadows, my demons, my past, I failed you for concealing my gratitude for one year,
two years,
three years too long.
Maybe the timing is as right as it could have been. Maybe this acknowledgement is overdue, and far from ideal, but its fragility, its honesty, will hopefully bring you some solace.
Because I have been thinking…
When they say you have lost a loved one, they do not know where to seek. One cannot possibly search the delicate entity of my interwoven heart, knit with memories and unsung, “I love you”s. One cannot pull apart the puzzle of permanency my soul has crafted, it would bleed with oceans of apologies, and an inability to stop loving if one even attempted to tug at its edges. When they say you have lost a loved one,
they are wrong.
I dressed myself for eleven funerals within two years. I greeted Death as an old friend, as a thief. She was a hypocrite, but at twelve-years-old, I had not been privy to those kinds of disguises before.
Now, I believe in fourth chances and forgiveness, epiphanies and apologies, poetry and the goodness of people. You have taught me how to have faith.
I would like to tell you that I am grateful. You could have left me running when I cried, when I screamed, when I irrationally disbelieved in everything beautiful that surrounded me.
But your train of thought never dreamed of leaving the station. God likes turning tables.
If you shout, I will stand still. If you cry, I will turn my shoulder towards your chin. If you stumble, I will catch you. I owe you everything. You are the one person I have never forgotten.
You are the best big brother in the world. He would want you to know that.
And, regarding tomorrow. Maybe the clouds will dance in on pins and needles, and maybe they won’t. Maybe the sun will burn mockery into the tunnels of your curls, but maybe it will wink at you instead. Tomorrow is synonymous with uncertainty, all things are uncertain except for me,
except for we.
Look within, that is where he resides, that is where those who truly seek will find.
I love you for everything you have been to me.
And, I am sorry for every time those words have eluded me.
If you are ever subjected to an awkward conversation, we fondly suggest that you insert The Face into any dialogue, thus creating an awkward conversation injected with uncomfortable humor. Use at your own discretion.
With Much Love,
Pedo-Beary-Beth and Lil’ Mama
Mama asked me to paint a portrait of the boy I never wanted to be with,
So I blew the cobwebs off of our childhood picture frames, and shattered them against shared-driveway concrete, making a mosaic of memories I wish I had never collected.
You wanted to love me, and I let you.
I left you.
Because July nights of almost kisses and blue-tongued slushies led us to an era of achievements, you shed your little boy skin, and grew an exoskeleton of criticism, I was the plainest part of your summers, thirteen years too old for brand-new, never as enticing as your first girlfriend,
or your fifth.
But eating figments of dreaming left you empty, you always came back dissatisfied. Groveling amid the cobblestone gravel, asking for eternal chances, granted ephemeral chances, you twirled my shoelaces around your scarred index fingers, apologizing with chiseled jawlines and a lollipop smooth smile, you believed in double-knots because they kept my bows in one place, kept me bound to one place.
You had a knack for carving cold-hearted promises out of my arteries, but my body had a talent for bleeding.
You drained me, meticulously, sucking one cell at a time from the labyrinth of my veins, determined to make me unlovable, my heartbeat, echoing amid a cavity of crooked design.
My lungs grew lopsided; I relied on your approval for the intake, your refusal for the exhale, you only granted me the latter, so I lost faith in breathing, and invested stock in leaving, I bared by spinal cord, and you smiled, never once protesting the bone protruding from flesh ripped from my backbones by your unapologetic lacerations.
You were the first boy to break me.
But I am speaking hollow words in a hallway of crippled portraits, your face reigns with sovereignty, to the Pauper I never wanted to be with,
I could not understand how I had lived my life without you, until I realized that, with you, I was never really living in the first place.
Two days have passed, and I still do not have words. My life is so, unbelievably beautiful.
original theme by blackishgray /// archive /// liked posts ❤
