Daughter

I know this story

isn't easy.

It wasn't easy

for me either.

.

I gave it all

.

to regain what she

.

had lost,

.

to my rejection

of what she

had gained.

.

Living it was the hardest part.

It was hard to play these parts.

.

People that weren't real,

narratives that were false

and surreal, lonely

.

stories told by people

who came at the end

and had no vision

or patience to understand

the beginning.

.

But it was meant to be.

The story was already told

before we began the living

of the telling.

.

The ones that judged

and prejudged and crucified

our love you and I,

.

are long gone

and not here

to stand between

the bonds that bind

the two of us.

.

We are here, together

you and I. We fought

through eternity

to exist together

in this life.

.

I never forsook

you, and

.

I always believed in you.

I always fought for us.

I never abandoned you.

I always had faith in you.

.

That you would understand

the story I am telling now

even when others criticised

the topic of the telling.

.

I risked it all for you.

Pledged my fortune,

Pledged my life.

.

I will never stop

mourning

the pieces of our past.

.

The shards that dry on black rock

ground, hot but congealing

like smoking glass,

substances

once an integral part

of who we were.

.

The flaming embers

of our collective memory

are the hardest fires

to put out.

.

I will never stop begging

for your forgiveness,

for what couldn't be

and couldn't last.

.

I tried so hard

.

but failed so terribly.

All I see are pictures

of your childhood

looking back at me.

.

Those photos

will always wear my tears.

Stained salt black on

the bulletin board

in your childhood room.

.

This poem is a prayer

from the future, a kiss

to your forehead

.

from a father that will love

you beyond the end

of memory, and a promise

of better pieces,

.

of things

.

dreams

.

and schemes

.

that will wipe the bitterness

from our cheeks.