meant to be yours | d.w

40

"But thy days shall be days of sorrow— that sorrow which is the most lasting of impressions"

August 28th 1963

My father was a nice man.

I always got the sense that he would burrow me into something grand, but the definition of grand was never fully explained to me.

For terror could be seen as grand. So could monstrosity. So could the very actions that disgust us. It is all a matter of perspective.

I remember that specific day, where our calendars marked the near end of August, when I could sense my relationship with my father beginning to escalate. For I vividly remember feeling so guilty with the world for sending me, the worlds greatest failure, as the daughter to succeed my parents.

I remember stepping into his office with the weight of a thousand worries flooding my mind.

I remember the way my heart sank when he told me he was disappointed in me for spending time with a negro.

I remember clenching my hand into a fist, maintaining the mixture of anger and hurt that has reigned me ever since I was a little girl.

I remember wanting to hate him,

but I never really could.

It was always so mesmerizing what just a respectful job could do for you. I looked up to my father, for every time he returned home, I stared at him in awe for his bravery. Little did I know how my father was more complex than I had ever known.

Every memory takes me down a path that I shove to the back of my throat, hoping he fades away just like so many others.

But he won't. For the remembrance of all the good and bad times stay engraved like a lock the refuses to picked in my chest. The key staying lost, abandoned, every miserable word out there.

I remember a lot of things, all except the exact steps to forgetting someone.

Me and Meghan sat across from each other, each of us hugging our knees in the shabby looking playhouse we used as our own personal safe haven. She smiled, her big doe eyes entrancing me.

She allowed one of her fingers to twirl through my hair, as if it were a ribbon that could never be managed. It was always rare to get genuine curls in my hair, and even rarer to get them to stay in place.

Don't touch me the way the sun taps planet earth, touch me the way you would gather flakes of gold in the palm of your hands. So carefully, so full of emotion that speaking doesn't even serve as an option. Allow your hands to gracefully gather into mine.

Her sepia skin shone in the dim lighting, despite the sun threatening to fade, our concentration was never lost. For we were talking with such ease a moment ago, and now here we were, lost in this daze, lost in the eyes that dragged me in.

When I was fifteen years old, I was anything but sure. But if there was one thing I was absolutely sure of, it was that I wanted her in this moment.

And I think she wanted me too.

We stayed in this entanglement, her warm hands caressing me every so often, my breath hitching whenever she merely caught my eye. Whenever we were completely alone, she became mischievous. For out there she was so caught up in the monstrosities that reigned her that she rarely had time to act her age. But it was the same with me. I grew reckless when we were alone. For when you get so close to having everything, you grow ripe in the danger of losing all that you have. But with her, everything felt possible.