dear michael,
there was a time I would hold you gently, cradle you in my arms, talk to you in baby talk
there was a time I would hold your hand and we’d walk around and around the blocks, talking
there was a time I would hold you tightly, trying to calm you down, to let you know, I am here
there was a time I wouldn’t hold you at all, I just didn’t have the time, it was too late or I was too tired
there was a time I wanted to hold you, but I didn’t know how to ask, you were too far away or too angry
all these times, rattling in my head, every time I look at you
all these times, and with each glance you change
all these times, you cannot keep still enough
all these times, like flashes of sunlight
like a friend smiling across a room
like a lost ring suddenly found
like a promise lost
and out of nowhere you stumble into the room
and embrace me suddenly, warmly, completely
as if you were me telling me instead
“I am here, I am not angry, I havent changed at all”
Love,
daddy
2021.10.03

my love,
Every year, every card, it’s so focused on the past. You’re such and such years old. Do you remember this? Slices of memories, sometimes light brush strokes, sometimes deep cuts. But it’s always nostalgia. It’s always about the past, about something that is gone. As if that’s all we are living for, to remember a past that we can never reclaim, we can never have again, hopeless, lost, out of our reach. And there’s a sadness to that, isn’t there? The immutability of time, the tragicness of how ephemeral everything can be, how fragile.
And that’s not right. that’s not right at all. It’s so inaccurate when it comes to how I feel and think about you, about us. I always think about the possibility. I always think about our future. It’s robust, it’s timeless, it’s engraved in stone that future archeologists will dug up and admire. They will see blow the dust off and marvel the etchings and carvings of our life together and instantly know. They will write stories that will inspire generation after generation.
Here’s what I foresee. I can’t wait until we travel. I can’t wait to see Paris again. I can’t wait to visit Colombia. I can’t wait to share a meal with you whose name I cannot pronounce. I can’t wait to see you on the beach again. I can’t wait to see you standing on a balcony and the breeze makes your hair dance. I can’t wait to see our children start lives of their own. Not to get rid of them, but to see them bloom and grow and stretch even more. I can’t wait for you to scold me for spoiling our grandchildren. I can’t wait to sell this house and buy another closer to anywhere, wherever anywhere could be.
Because that anywhere, that everywhere, that every when is always with you.
Always,
me
2021.08.31

Ba,
When you first came into my life, I didn’t know you, I was happy for my mom, but I didn’t know you and didn’t want to. I was happy for her, she would get off my back and that was good.
But you made her happy, and that was better than I had expected, and you guys were going to get married, so suddenly, I wanted to impress you. I still didn’t want to get to know you. That’s how teenagers are, we’re stupid and self-centered.
Then I got married, and became a father too. I wanted more than anything, for your admiration. I wanted you to admire the man I was becoming, the family I was making, the life I was building.
It was still all about me.
Now, now that the aches are starting to settle in, as the next phase of the kids’ lives is just around the corner. As I look around to everything I am and have, I can’t fight the feeling that I need you more than ever. And not to help with a crisis or a home project, but to hear the stories of your youth, your triumphs and your failures. To be impressed by you, to admire you, as you once were and still are.
I guess this is a long way of saying, I want to get to know you; my father, my dad, my “ba”.
Took long enough didn’t it?
Love, always,
Me
2021.06.18

there was a point in time that there was a point a time. it’s all a blur as to when. it’s all a blur as to now. now it’s all a blur. this is what i’m talking about. nothing is lost. it’s all been lost. time. my friend. my enemy. my elusive lover. my beast. my better. this is what is lost once i start talking. time is lost. the words get lost. there is no atmosphere here, there is only the impending silence. the impending doom of time. i’ve said it so many times it’s lost in time, about time, it’s about time we wrote about what we’ve lost. and it’s ridiculous. higher than ever before despite the pandemic. they’re still here, my children, my mortal reminders of my mortality. i shot up in the dark the other night. the inevitability, the steady course, the unwavering destination, i saw it in my mind’s eye but i felt it in my bones. we laugh now, we all sit around and laugh. yes i can deadlift 300, 400, 500 pounds, but it’s right around the corner, right there, can’t you see it? it’s not an imagined point on the other side of the horizon, it’s not even on the edge of the horizon, it’s the next fucking destination. stiff bones, stiff joints, the difficulty in the hip, in standing, the crick in the back, i kept imagining myself needing a cane. can you believe it? me, a cane, because i couldn’t get off the shitter.

my love,
we think of valentine’s day as one for lovers, soon to be lovers, quiet lovers, shy lovers emboldened to burst free and proclaim their earnestness. we think of valentine’s day as a day for old lovers, cute wrinkled raisons, holding hands on a porch, teasing each other, gently bickering, confident that as they end their lives they’ve made the right decision in each other, as if it was the only inevitable to decision to make.
when we think of valentine’s day, we don’t think of the steady-state lovers. the halfway through this life lovers, the ones who have had ups and downs and hardship and fight and make peace and laugh not knowing why or how but for the sheer joy of laughing with each other. the lovers who have found their groove, who move in and through each other with learned grace and expert care. the lovers who know better, the lovers who know too much, the lovers who are often no longer though of as lovers.
and i am vexed. i’m not ready to be the old-timey’s: there’s a certain kind of fatality with them, a certain resignation. yes they found their souls mates but it was inevitable, it was long decided, it was …hopeless? and i don’t want to a youthful one either: too much anxiety, too much dread, too much how do i look and too much i don’t want to say anything stupid. there’s too much in the way of actually just being with someone that has nothing to do with the someone you want to be with.
i looked it up: st valentine was a martyr. he married people that were forbidden to do so. while imprisoned he cured the sight of his jailer’s daughter. there was also more than one. it makes me think of that song by depeche mode, a man in love becoming a missionary or that other song by seal, future love paradise, embracing all forms of love. and i think of the summer nights that led up to september of 1995, the isolation and determination i had felt to be alone, to be one and only. i think of the darkness of those nights and the ones after, where you shattered it.
where you brought warmth, where you brought a tentative, shy kind of hope. where you freed me by being free yourself. and that’s what i want valentine’s day to be: not to remember and hope, dream and forgive, but to be, to be in love, to be with each other as each other. to be timeless, forever and always.
-me
2021.02.14

my love,
there is a place in the world, where the virus does not touch. there is a place in the world where all things are eternal. there is a place in the world where everything that was once broken is shiny and new again without fracture. there is a place in the world where the trees of the forest sing to one another with limbs entwined. there is a place in the world where children ride ferocious blue bears with glee. there is a place in the world where flowers blossom never the same color twice. there is a place in the world where the sun literally caresses your cheek with the scent of honey. there is a place in the world where porcelain squirrels store food in the cupboards of the old. there is a place in the world where cliffs sprout slides into warm rivers for weary travelers. there is a place in a world where ants cheer the toils of bees as they hitch flights to and fro. there is a place in the world where dolphins teach chimpanzees the wonders of the sea. there is a place in the world where the steel of skyscrapers in vast cities are soft to the touch. there is a place in the world where men and women spontaneously disco to a beat everyone instinctively knows. there is a place in the world where cars at intersections are polite with one another and insist on “no, after you.” there is a place in the world where the next step instantly takes someone across continents.
does it sound familiar? does it echo something primal in your heart? oh wonderful girl, it should.
it’s where you came from.
love, always
2020.11.26