Here Lies

I called for you last night

it wasn’t for any of those other reasons we have

this time it was to tell you I was hurting

hurting still… only differently

differently, that poetry won’t mend

differently, that thoughts of you won’t pacify

differently, that distraction from you won’t make me forget

no, this time so different that even a superhero’s cape couldn’t save me

as I sit on the other side of a mountain of hope

I always thought you would answer my cry when it felt real to you

to whatever real means to you

I have done nothing over these years but climb that hope

over and over

thinking one day I would resurrect that real and make it come alive again

to finally know that you feel something for me

maybe that’s all my own dreams

and we know dreams are not real

one day dust will sweep over my body where it lay

marked for the rest of the world

with a sentence that I still continue to call out your name

from beneath my mountain of hope

that fell and crumbled the same day as I did

…your father