A red balloon
rising towards the ceiling.
You put me on your shoulders to retrieve it.
Is absence natural for you?
Could it run in the family? Just as you ran from your problems, your two daughters.
I must get it from you.
I live out my day five hours ahead
of the ones I love,
creating new relationships.
I think I will stay here.
They ask if I'm sure
The last time I heard from you was father's day.
To cancel our visitation.
At the age of ten I knew fury, or at least I thought I did.
What I really felt was hurt, pain which lingered for so long.
Years passed and the only word from you
was a letter requesting my emancipation.
The week of my 18th birthday I received this,
not a card.
Just a legal document which meant
you want no further connection with your eldest daughter.
You do not know what you've missed,
all these years.
I look at my feet now and know they are like yours.
I will not go the same places as you, away.
I will not be a thing that is gone,
whose memory haunts.
It has taken years
I have freed myself
You may return some day to retrieve what you have lost
To make amends
However
I am unretrievable
I am floating away
