How does a mother explain to a daughter
That the father she has loved-
The man who took the young girl in his arms to teach her how to dance in the musty attic, the father who sang her to sleep when the nightmares turned to terrors, the dad who taught her that laughter is the cure to everything;
How does a mother tell her daughter he chose a drink over his princess?
A gulp of liquid death whose fire burned
Not only down the throat,
But in the lives of the prisoner who that devil caught.
How did she tell her?
No words.
No mention of why daddy had fallen in that attic,
No saying that he'll come back.
No one ever told me that the reason I wake up screaming is from the dreams that can't be quieted without him. No mother told me that the wonderful man I remember, full of love and life had been drowning in his own choices. No it was left to a journal found way deep in a box for a young girl to come find.
And now the fire is not pouring down a throat,
Nor in the attic of that once life-full home.
That fire is in his little girl, who forgot how to dance and whose dreams still haunt her, the one who forgot what it means to laugh.