Flowers in the Closet

I wear dad’s clothes

Hiding hopes and dreams in the pockets of pants that swallow me whole

Disappearing disasters in the folds of fabric that smell like men’s cologne

Perhaps the hats will melt atop my head

Suffocating thoughts of deafening dread

I wish I could take hits like he did

Fancying the fun of it

Deep drags despite devastation

Instead of darkness daring my lungs to give out on me

Swallowing smoke as a lifeline,

Playing with the possibility of drowning in it

Dad’s heart echoes the steady drums of my childhood

Before my feet could reach the base pedal

Back when he first told me

“It’s important to hold your drumsticks like a sword”

Typical of him to mean it technically

While my marauding mind molds it into a metaphor

His clothes created a shield

Shading my shifts in serendipity

So that the darkness wouldn’t remember my name

He taught me how to drive

How the pedals prevented midnight spent staring at myself

Spent laying on the kitchen floor thinking on the tragedy of no way out

He taught me how to drink

How running away from yourself can’t work if you’re stumbling

How the warmth of whiskey can never combat the cold of a coffin

He taught me how to dream of a California sun amidst the washed up winter of Brooklyn

And make it there in time to see the tides recede into darkness

I wear dad’s clothes

To steal a bit of his sentiment

A life well lived

Well hurt

Well broken

Well learned

But never a life unloved