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When people mention him

I tell them, he

Is out of town, working

 

So I don’t have to explain

How he

Just left me

Praying to the stars

Crying myself to sleep

 

Picking up my cold trembling body

Out of the shower

Searching

For something to hold on

 

Staring

All day at that door

That he

May never enter again

At least

Not as him

 

I tell people, he

Is out of town, working

So there is no need to explain

How he is now

Less of a father

But more of a stranger

 

It is you

And I against the world together

Is what he used to tell me

It is now nothing

But an empty echo

A broken promise

The disappearing of a memory

 

I imagine

What he must have felt like

On the day he left

 

How he swore

Not to shed a tear

Not to regret

Not to look back

At his daughter

Who he could no longer hold

In his arms, anymore

 

I imagine

On the fast moving bus

With his body rested

And his perfectly hidden

Despondent look

There was something missing

Inside of him

 

10 miles, 20 miles, 200 miles

He became an empty vessel

 

As he whispered to himself

She will be fine

She will be fine

She will be fine

 

As if these words

Could refill the empty vessel

With his tentative dreams

Of ever having a daughter

 

The sweetness of yesterday

Vanished at the tip of his tongue

He tasted nothing

but air now

Nothing

But the bitterness of dying memories

 

He looked down

At the one-way ticket

He held in his hands

 

The person he used to call

His daughter

He could not touch, cannot feel

Could not recognize

The dimming lights behind her eyes

 

She is not

Not his daughter he used to hold

In his arms, anymore

 

It is you and I

Against the world together

Is just another empty echo

A broken promise

In her already shattered universe