letter to my father // letter to my dad

to my father:

sometimes, the difference between my boyfriend’s death and your life is simply which fluid the poem flows from, your throat a ballad of bourbon and ink. in some way, both become a bloodbath.

to my dad:

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even as a child, my poems have led me to you. in preschool, i started collecting bottle caps. by sixth grade, i had garnered enough metal to raise a bridge, as if my bedroom were a palindrome of iron and steel.

father,

the first time you confessed you were an alcoholic, it was midnight as we were walking across a bridge. you pointed to the water, your naked fist shivering beneath the thin blanket of dew and rain. you said you always stayed at least three feet from a bridge’s edge, so as to tame your temptation to fly. it was the first time in years there was something alike between us.

dad,

on my first day of kindergarten, i brought your own briefcase to school, because i wanted to be just like you. i still recall the walk home: how the briefcase was so heavy i couldn’t carry it, but how buoyant the coarse leather looked beneath your grip.

father,

the last time you took me to the beach, you asked–between sips of whiskey–why i always write about the same trauma using the same metaphors. the truth is, each day, i relive the memory of a boy drowning before i could write him a lifeboat.

dad,

the first time you took me to the beach, i wrote a limerick of seashells and glass bottles, my pen a cocktail of limestone and ash. the drive home, i read the poem aloud, as if that night were an encore of the tide’s restless tempo. i swore that, someday–if i had a boyfriend–i would take him there too.

father,

once, i watched an ocean make a bloodbath of a boy, his lungs swelling like balloons of salt and spit, his breath so buoyant the water could scream a sonnet of latex and wind. once, i watched you swallow five bottles of liquor. how fast lament becomes a liquid. how quickly water becomes a weapon.

father,

when you tried to kill yourself,

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father,

when i tried to kill myself,

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father,

you were upstairs, drafting a couplet of moonshine and smoke, your pen a cocktail of bottle caps and burned bridges.

father,

i was downstairs, writing the same poem as always, willing away the water. this boy, how angry i was when he jumped, how i still scribble sonnets wondering why he broke up with me. or why he moved away. or why he killed himself on the anniversary of our first kiss.

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father,

i have spent years molding metaphors from memories, all to find some way to tell you i love you.

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father,

i still love you.

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father,

sometimes, the difference between my boyfriend’s death and your life is simply which fluid the poem flows from. in this way, i am always writing for you both.