body cast

Dad, it has been four years since you passed and I still do not have an answer. I miss you.

In fourth grade I wanted to be hit by a car and put into a bodycast in the hospital. It was very important, when I repeatedly acted out this scenario in my mind, that my head and neck were visible and functioning as I wanted to be able and turn my head away when someone tried to reach in and kiss me. I was so afraid that no one was watching me that I thought a huge hit like this to my physicality would reign everyone's attention in and place it upon me. How melodramatic and rather unloved of me.

My poem of the day:

I Am With You

Dear reader, I want you to know that I was with you on so many of those nights
you felt abandoned.
I was with you the night you stumbled to the overpass,
gripped the railing,
stood firm.
Your wild hair waving in the height’s wind.
Hurled out every minute insecurity of yours.
How you wanted to leap,
the desire always licking at your wounds.
I was with you, my pinky slipped around yours.
Our own Plath/Sexton anti-suicide pact.
I was with you

I know about the nights when dreams of Mom and Dad still alive
came like a pack of soap stuffed, sock bearing cadets
to beat your already swollen face in slumber.
They wanted to take your hope.
Little one, how you thought you’d never recover.
I found it so appropriate; your laconic state.
It was I applying pressure to your heart.
I was with you

It was also I who held the door open the night two toads appeared on your front porch.
I kept you from fainting as posies sprouted out from their mouths,
an uninvited omen.
I was with you.
I watched as you felt the choking of roots pushing their way down your own throat.
I guess some lessons don’t pull back after they’ve punched you in the lungs.
The blossoms may have stolen the show,
but I was with you.

Some times I even witnessed the nights that seemed to mollify you.
A new lover’s leg brushing yours in the backseat of a taxi.
A text message which allows for a day of perpetual garrulousness.
A close friend who understands you, open-faced.
I was with you
I am with you