Ask him my birthday-
He’ll pause,
Scratch his head,
Name a month that sounds close enough.
Ask him my favourite colour.
And he’ll laugh like its a trick question,
Say “blue…? or pink?”
Like I’m a child he once met
In passing.
He knows the scores of old games,
The lyrics to songs from his youth,
The way to fix a car by sound alone-
But not the shape of my fears,
Not the way I take my coffee,
Not the things that make me stay up at night.
We live in the same history
But not the same story.
I memorized his footsteps in the hall,
The tone in his voice when he was tired,
The rare, shining moments
When he said my name
Like it mattered-
But if you ask him about me now
He would search his pockets
And come up empty
Its a strange kind of heartbreak
To be loved in theory,
To be “my kid”
Without being known.
I want too hand him a list-
My birthday
My favorite color
The music I play on repeat
The dreams I am too scared to say out loud-
But I’m afraid
He wouldn't know
What to do
With the answers.
So I sit across from him
And talk about the weather,
The safe things,
The things that don’t require
Being seen.
And if you ask him about me,
He’ll say
“Yeah thats my child”
With a proud, distant smile-
While I quietly wonder
What it would feel like
To be someone
He could describe
Without guessing
Mar 2
Mar 2, 2026 at 9:52 AM UTC
Ask him my birthday-
He’ll pause,
Scratch his head,
Name a month that sounds close enough.
Ask him my favourite colour.
And he’ll laugh like its a trick question,
Say “blue…? or pink?”
Like I’m a child he once met
In passing.
He knows the scores of old games,
The lyrics to songs from his youth,
The way to fix a car by sound alone-
But not the shape of my fears,
Not the way I take my coffee,
Not the things that make me stay up at night.
We live in the same history
But not the same story.
I memorized his footsteps in the hall,
The tone in his voice when he was tired,
The rare, shining moments
When he said my name
Like it mattered-
But if you ask him about me now
He would search his pockets
And come up empty
Its a strange kind of heartbreak
To be loved in theory,
To be “my kid”
Without being known.
I want too hand him a list-
My birthday
My favorite color
The music I play on repeat
The dreams I am too scared to say out loud-
But I’m afraid
He wouldn't know
What to do
With the answers.
So I sit across from him
And talk about the weather,
The safe things,
The things that don’t require
Being seen.
And if you ask him about me,
He’ll say
“Yeah thats my child”
With a proud, distant smile-
While I quietly wonder
What it would feel like
To be someone
He could describe
Without guessing
