Dad, I don’t want to look at you today.
I don’t want to think about the hoots and hollers of pure joy when we sat atop those snowy mountains.
When all the stress crinkles in your forehead melted away.
No, I don’t want to think about those days.
They make me wonder too much about the grueling days laced in between.
When your fury came out, tongue lashes bubbling with humiliation.
Leaving sharp edges in my throat where blood would pool up.
I’d save it for the days I’d had enough of your bully games.
I hold your worst day and your best side by side while I look at the wall and wonder what it would take for you to see it the way I lived it.
I then look up and see that my trip back in the rearview mirror has cost me days of my life again.
So I don’t want to think about you today, but you walk in my bones whether I want you to or not.
I can’t separate myself from you entirely, I love you too much.
And what we’ve lost is too sad to never look back.