He held my hand,
freshly wrought from
my mother's womb,
torn through a hole in
her belly and spilled from
a hole in his heart.
He smelled of Old Spice and
body odor and
marijuana,
he wore gold chains when
he was born to rags and
stacks of wood.
His grip on my hand,
so firm and strong and settled,
his gentle cooings and
warmth;
I miss the safety of it.
You can't be held
when you're the same size,
when the holder is the one
who might need to be held.
What nightmares had you seen
in white-washed walls and
halls of ravings and throwings and
the violence of a withdrawn mind?
Father,
it is you
that I have become,
that I still fixate toward--
my heart is heavy and
my head is torn apart.
You are my North Star
that guides me through life's oceans,
my scale to balance
my heart to a feather;
I wonder if it might be weighed down
with regret?
Father,
it is you
that I march toward,
that I find myself morphing into,
plucked from the cocoon of maturity from
a hole torn in its belly.
I had left one womb
for another,
it seemed.
Did I ever truly tell you
what you meant to me?
Even when
you weren't around
I turned to the air
to the warmth around me
to a stranger's grip or
the embrace of another.
Even when
you had left the world
for the one in your head
I only looked up to the twinkling of the night
to find my guide;
I remember
reaching a shaky hand
out to the skies.
The starry curtain
wrapped around my arm,
flowing like a gentle ocean,
like the fluid in the womb
then solidifying
like bedrock
like bottoms
like bases.
Even when
I hadn't seen you in months or
spoken to you in years,
I still held on
to that firm grip,
that far-too gentle
hand.