to my guardian angel of a father

dear daddy

Hi dad, it's me,
~~~, your little girl...
I've been thinking about you a lot lately, but it seems with every day to a week to a month to a year, your face gets more and more distant...

Do you remember the first day we met? I don't because I was a baby but I bet it was amazing. Like when your trying something new for the first time and you absolutely love it. I probably stared at you for hours while you held me close in your arms whispering about how much my daddy loves me and how you will protect me with your life. It's funny how things seem to end so soon when you never want it to.

I remember my first memory I can ever remember with you, I was sitting on a very small bed while you were sitting on a very thin mattress on the floor of a room my grandmother let us stay in while mom was in rehab. You were smiling so wide and brightly as you sang and waved your hands over those guitar strings like nomater how much sound it gave it was never enough and we always craved for more.

Do you remember when you baught me my first scooter, I was childish and it was a Barbie scooter but I was young and I rode that thing like if I ever lost it it would be like an astronaut lost his helmet in space, or better yet the sun was going to collide with the sky and I would just ride on the burning light like it was an oversized nightlight ment to be there to keep my thoughts from the monsters of the dark, so many happy memories of 6 years we had clouded by the misery of the concept that all good things end and all bad things haunt until whoever remembers them ends themselves.

I still remember that day, the day you were kicked out of your mom, my grandmother's house for hiding little bags of drugs in your dresser and how it was so close to me it made her sick.

I still remember that day...

The day we got a call after church saying that you were laying still on my aunt's couch and wouldn't move an inch or even breath to tell anyone your alright, you were just still...
and gone....
And there was nothing we could do...

You know, with each day your face blurs I feel the guilt and burning anxiety that sometimes I had wished and still wish that it was mom instead of you that had left. I could only imagine how heartbroken you would be, my mom never seemed that fazed, I've never seen her cry for you, and it makes me sad to think that maybe she had just hid it to herself. Sometimes I can imagine how it would feel if we had sat on the couch after she was gone and cuddle and cry while you told me everything was going to be ok, I wish it would be ok because it isn't now. I'm stuck with this acid feeling that you left for a reason and that reason is me, I don't know why but I feel I could have done something but I didnt...

Sometimes I imagine you dropping me off to my first day of high school where you would send me off with a kiss to the forehead and a wave goodbye, but you missed that already. And sometimes I imagine you crying and hugging me on graduation day as I proudly hold my diploma and scholarships worth thousands and tell me "your going somewhere". I wanted you to be there for my first hook up to my first break up, and be there when I do it all over again. When I screw up and go to a party you said no to and turn up drunk so we can laugh it off years later when I'm grown and have a family of my own and grandchildren you could talk to and stories you could tell about the times you swiped my mom off her feet and danced the night away.
.
.
.
.

But I'm stuck here in the parallel universe where everything is wrong and your not here... And I wish you were.

But a wish is only what you think and not what it is...
Only what could have been in a far away galaxy crying for attention but God said no, I don't want that. Being the selfish man he is he takes and takes to make us strong but it leaves us with a weak inside screaming "why?!" ... "why did this happen?!"

And there's nothing we can do...