My first memory is a lie.
My father is wrapped in a white sheet.
He wears a gown, a wedding of man and tomb stone.
The cake tastes like a burial.
I was there, I think.
I think I saw him there laying.
I don’t remember a funeral, just a man in his coronation with God.
My therapist was the one who told me that I was too young for memory.
And my only memory of father lays in the sweaty palms of probability,
I look for answers.
Followed the trail of iodoform back to the hospital.
Find a dress waiting for me, a gown.
I trace the shaky seams of memory.
I see his face in all the photos and I don’t miss him.
How do I mourn a father I never knew?
I can’t love a father who was never there.
Every night, I stare at my door,
and it’s like I can almost feel him on the other side.
To me, he’s nothing more than a conglomerate
of paranormal heart attacks, just another ghostly aberration.
Question: How was it not right for him to haunt me?
Question: How could I not offer him a bed in his own house?
Answer:
I made my bed this morning.
Even if he came back, even if he crawled under the sheets,
he’d still be laying at rest,
I can feel his breath through every anxiety attack.
I’m 18 years old and still afraid of the dark.
My therapist said it’s normal for kids to be afraid of the dark,
but I’m not afraid of what lies in the shadows,
but what isn’t there.
Somewhere there’s a kid
who has found himself climbing
a neverending stairwell of locked closets,
condemned to never find the key at the top,
only to find their memory trapped fermenting in Mason jars.
—
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