Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Foolish, like hiding your tears 364 days a year
Just to cry out a river the day the past whispers in your ear

It's been a while since we talked. I'm 23 years old now, but sometimes I still feel like I'm the same 12-year-old boy you left behind years ago with no explanation or answer or hint. Only questions and pain and more pain. I stopped drinking because the bottles had become doors that constantly led to a place announced as Heaven, but it was only Hell again and worst. Where are you now, father, where are you now? I often close my eyes and try to hear your voice and see your face, but it is hard for the living to connect with the dead. Where are you now father? Do you know where I am, because I'm not sure even I know. After you left me I became one great questioner, one angry wielder of whys and how comes. Now I'm tired of questions, I have asked so many of them so many times. Now I'm tired of asking, so I strive to become one great answerer, one peaceful and happy wielder of because and it doesn't matter. But there is so much war in me Dad, there is so much war that I cannot be peaceful yet. I have to fight and punch and kick and scream and fall down and get up and fight more, otherwise the demon or the shadow or the evil or the bad guy in the mirror wins. Sometimes, before I go to sleep, I feel like reality fades away and I feel like life melts before my eyes and I feel like I'm not alone, like there's something more. And I hope always you are the something more, the something that somehow is still there, a blue flame hanging on, burning desperately in the cosmos even though the stars burn brighter. I guess we'll never beat the stars Dad, I guess we're only here to burn as bright and as long as we can. Burn and burn and shine and shine and try to give more light than shadows to our people. We have to hurt and love and do it all over again until our heart shows in our smile, and then we have to teach people how to hurt and how to love so they can smile too. You put out your fire too early Dad, you must be cold now, real cold. I'll have to burn more and more for you and I so I can say “Hey look at my fire, it burns in the name of the father and the son, it burns for us, it burns for two, it burns for you”. I hope you found the peace you were looking for, and if you did, send some my way, I desperately need it. I miss you.