If Fathers Stayed

If you could color me with your blue eyes again.

If you could smile or maybe even wrinkle your nose in my direction.

If I could amuse you with my unaffected simplicity.

If you could advise me... guide me... or just sit quietly, puzzled by my wanderings.

If you could see me now would you recognize me up close?

If you could see me now that you no longer need your glasses.

If I tell to you now what I meant to then, will you pat my hand?

If love outlives memories, then there is acceptance when we visit.

If, when I reach up to you, do you reach down and extend your finger for me to grip?

If I could feel it.

If I close my eyes.

If I have done well.

If I try.

If I continue.

Red Fur

 You used to fit in my hand but now you're outgrowing me. I fight the urge to run to keep up with you. Damn your legs! I carried you before you could walk and when you moved with new balance, your tiny hand in mine, I steadied you. What will I do with idle hands as you take the wheel? Toy cars to gasoline in less than a moment. You're trying on your traveling shoes and I am afraid they fit already. You grew into them when I wasn't looking. I believe in you and I trust you. Go ahead and start breaking them in. Admiration is a two-way street.

I hope you never deny me your ideas, so that I might have the chance to live in them. Be proud of who you are and fight to become who you want to be. It doesn't matter if you have a dirty face if your hands are clean. The desire to be a success is most of the struggle, the rest, as they say, is academic. Fear can never best effort. I envy your plans. It's not easy to forge a foundation from thin air, but it can be done.

Take me with you in your head and in your heart. I do not want to stand in front of you. I am happy to stand behind you.

WWYD? (What would you do?)

Would you trade an old soul for a young heart? Would you exchange your apprehension for daring? Would you shed your security, like dead skin, and bare yourself to the sun. Will you pass through darkness to touch light? Can you blister with life? 

Are you able to blend your courage with stupidity and still endure its taste? 

And with whom would your share your cup?

Would you risk broken bones for an embrace? Even one that's fleeting, at best?

Are you drenched inside with tears you cannot bleed? Can sunshine dry you inside? Would you run backward against the weight of time to stop your future or slow it to a crawl so that you can catch up? 

Are you willing to let another beat your heart for you?

Do you think you'll still be tall enough to ride the rollercoaster when you're flat on your back or will you lie, grey in your envy, and watch the train pass endlessly? Will you stand and continue to wave goodbye? Again? 

The color of love is black and its acceptance is white. Will you feel the beauty of letting go or will you hang on with eyes pinched closed, breaking lashes? Can you hold hands with shadows and ask memories to lead you home again or have you wandered from your path? Is your path overgrown, to dim to see but still deep enough to stumble upon? 

Are you tired of the cinema that plays scratched movies while your body cries for rest? Do you still mouth the dialog even when its bitter? Can you turn down the sound? 

There is no true distance, only separation but can you close those gaps with want? 

There are people here, good people, real people but mostly they hide. Can you glimpse their flashes as they pass between the catnaps that you call an average day? Can you be brave enough to wake when you haven't slept yet?

Exiting loved ones left spaces in you that were empty to begin with. Can you fill them with another void? Do you care to? You won't fill up on nothing. 

Does the depth of the water matter when your feet no longer touch bottom? And if you had to, for how long could you hold your breath? You cannot swim while you're making fists.

Will you open your hands and drop all of the sand that you carry? It's weighing you down.