It was four am.
I found the thought of you,
dusty and damaged at the back of my mind,
brushing it off as I placed it on the bedside table, beside my favourite framed photograph of my mother.
At last, the band is back together,
and at four am,
for the first time in months,
I am thinking about you.
I am REALLY thinking about you.
It is not a passing moment,
or a stream of swear words while I am under the influence,
it is a real, lasting, languishing thought.
You grow tall, towering over my mother in the frame,
spilling off the table, a shadowed phantom,
and my head is full of smashed bottles and shouting.
I have put my life in your hands too many times,
because up until recently, it didn’t mean much,
but now, I’m grown.
I am not a girl,
I haven’t been one for years,
I am a Goddess,
gliding across the golden sky,
and I know that it terrifies you,
as you stare up from hell and see what I have become.
I used to daydream about fantastical shows of regret.
The tower of leaning father,
stumbling over his machismo,
making good with the charred child, at last.
The tossed whisky glass returning to his scorching hand from the wall that it slid down,
an understanding smile instead of banishment,
the grace to just accept the child that God gave you.
The thought returns to being just a thought.
It grows small again,
taking you with it,
and in an instant, you are a small speck of dust on the bedside table.
I used to think that my greatest achievement would be your acceptance,
that my crown jewel would be an apology from a man who drank himself to death,
disturbed by the notion that his sweet little daughter was a seduced by a siren of sin.
Tonight, I thought about it,
and I thought about you.
I REALLY thought about you,
and I noticed that my head has always been held like a Queen’s should be.
Pressure and stress are their own tiaras and I have been coronated,
I have lived a long life and reigned in a way that leaves me satisfied.
I write love songs to the people,
to the roses and poppies that are summoned by spring,
and every Sunday, I read stories to the starlit skies,
and you,
you are a small speck of dust on the bedside table,
bawling into a shot glass about how shocking and upsetting it is to discover the truth about your daughter.
You are a small speck of dust on the bedside table, you do not get to rise from the dead,
but I have never stopped gliding through the golden sky,
because I am a Goddess.
Sincerely, Jennifer x 