9/18/12

Dear Papa,

It's not over.
It didn't end.
It never will.

There is no time, no distance that could make me
any less your daughter.
You knew that already, I think.
I didn't understand when you
said that I had
grown up years ago.
This was only a marker, the
bubble baths and crayon art, my
formative years, so well documented in
Mama's office, so that people always ask if she has
grandchildren,
had ended long ago.

Every bubble we blew,
every story we read,
the formulas you struggled to teach me and
the eggs for dinner when Mama was
out late,
the articles you found for me,
the Sinatra songs you learned to like,
they're with me here.

Your presence is in the
curl in my hair and the
way I read poetry, for
impact, in how I
like my coffee and
how I like my
people.

I grew up your daughter, and was afraid that grown I wouldn't be.
Now I know that your impact
is unchanging.

When I go, and
when you go, it
makes no difference.

It's only miles.

Love,
yr daughter

9/16/12

Dear Papa,

I haven't started the book you sent.
It's on my night stand, under a
 couple others that I'm
pretending to read.

Maybe inside the book
you sent,
there is some hidden truth, some
formula for
letting go.

I'm a curiosity, Papa, a
character in a novel with an
interesting backstory.
We might study my motives
and emotions, my rising and falling,
and tie them to specific instances,
or patterns.

We like backstories, and motives.
We are fascinated by the minute
part of the mind we are able to understand, amazed by how much,
how little
of this great mysterious aspect of life we can
comprehend.

Mine would be too personal, because you
love me,
and what motivates me would make you
helpless.

I'll bring the book, then, today.
And I'll look for answers you didn't mean to send.

I find immense comfort in the safety you imagine for me.

Love,
yr daughter

9/4/12

Dear Papa,

When we left, I woke up to a sky full of stars and a
porch full of roses, peachy in the yellow glow of
a lamp on the wall, and I
never breathed air so thin and sweet,
crisp on my cheeks, and our
house,
our street, kissed me goodnight,
good morning,
goodbye.

I left behind nothing, nothing,
everything.
Clean space, clean slate,
empty white walls,
like the ones I found here.

I'm filling them up,
photographs smile and
a calendar hangs.

In the darkness, eyes closed, I see only those stars,
and smell only those roses.



Love,
yr daughter