He may never know that there are fireflies growing inside him. Wings threatening to sprout from his spine if he would merely reach toward the heavens my father is no hero. He’s a postal worker. A Vietnam vet with a Jim Crow education six children and enough regrets to fill a casket with sometimes sleeps with his eyes open as if he’s looking for 3 AM redemption from whatever insomniac angels may be still watching over his body and with all his flaws I still love him with every bit of the jigsaw puzzle heart that pumps life through this thin frame the exact same blood that runs through my daddy’s veins because no matter how many miles I put between us the undeniable truth remains that I’m a carbon copy of my father exactly 5 foot 10 170 pounds with not a muscle in sight love to pretend that we’re really good at basketball and have this amazing ability to emotionally damage the people we care about most. Take my mother for instance the woman who gave me life and the person my dad and I owe the biggest apology to for our unwillingness to be vulnerable. Mom, I’m sorry for being so ungrateful. for not being satisfied with the fact that most times it was only you in the audience at performances and watching me on the sidelines But if growing up as a Black man in America has taught me anything it’s that there is nothing more dangerous than telling another man you care about him so at this moment right now I’m choosing to murder the monster that hides inside me the one that keeps me from crying when I need to and telling my little brother I love you Dad no matter what this world may say you are an inspiration a poetic painter on par with Pollock turned being a mailman into a metaphor because for as long as I can remember for 10 hours a day every single week he would sling a 100-pound sack of mail over his shoulders carry the hopes and dreams of the masses on his back like a 60 year-old Atlas with an Alabama accent and though he may not know it there’s not much difference between the work he does every night and the way I write poems see my hands turn into carrier pigeons when I pick up a pen allowing my words to rocket through the air like I was on a first name basis with the wind and so as i long its cool with my dad I’ll continue to believe that the lights I write to every night are coming from within him the fireflies on his insides the sunbeams that gleam from his gut as a constant reminder that my father will never die even when we forget to act like family and he doesn’t have the insight to see that I’m the only 19-year old I know who still wants to grow up to be just like his Dad that I’m fully aware that no one else could possibly bear the weight of my Earth-sized insecurities the way that he can and even when no one else gets him his second- youngest son understands that life ain’t easy when you come from war with a purple heart fastened to your chest and a shattered one behind the seams when you come home from war and post office realities are spawned as the bastard children of your law school dreams I know what you sacrificed for me and I promise that i’ll use this God-given gift to repay you one day but for right now Let go. no one’s watching it’s o.k. to be broken sometimes let the lightning bugs loose so I can illuminate the path for my children and provide them with undeniable proof that they are the descendants of a man who held the stars in his stomach could crumble a mountain with his smile and spoke truth to his son as if the entire world were watching
Posted on: Fri, 07 Jun 2013 17:43:29 +0000