I write this love letter to your broken.
To the shattered pieces you could never fathom into a love that didn’t sit behind Abuse’s cage. This letter is for that moment I considered your grandfather clock eyes and the time I grew impervious to the knife you called a tongue: It was summer, the sun had yet to kiss the sky good morning, as I rode up to Starbucks with the sound of my tires whimpering against the cement.
There you were, sitting outside at a table flooded with hand bags, your fifteen-year-old backpack, a polished suitcase, and a silver thermos filled to the brim with green tea. At the sight of me, you rose abruptly with a hint of happiness flooding your eyes. I allowed myself to enjoy the scent of must and packed down clothes on that purple Waukegan High School t-shirt you refused to throw away.
I missed you.
We shuffled uncomfortably beneath a pressure to speak like fathers and daughters do on warm summer mornings. For a time, you and I mimicked cordial conversations to quiet the hum of our past. It jostled and turned, trying to force itself into a seat at our table.
It was the first time you and I danced. Slow dragging and waltzing around our relationship issues like that morning was a stage and you and I were performers.
It was rhythmically sad, beautifully rehearsed, but lathered with a passion to pretend that for a moment you and I were just a father and daughter on a summer morning. When our unwelcomed guest stubbornly agreed to sit just outside the fence of remembrance, we sat down and without speaking you began to unpack those bags: You reached down and pulled out a black satchel, it was small, tattered, but as you gently placed it on the table, I knew it was heavy with all the things that make you, you. With the melody of your heart’s sweet vulnerabilities.
Without breaking your gaze, I reached down to unclip the bag.
Your anger.
It fell languidly onto the table scattering into pieces of your past; tales of a boy harassed by police, threatened by friends/family, forced into silence. Your face was expressionless as you pulled out yet another bag: it was a backpack that had collected dust in our old house. I was thirteen when I discovered it. Grand-father had scrunched himself to fit into the living room. His voice alone shattered your glass china pride and you deflated. It was the first time I had seen your small. Grand-father did not say a word as he stretched out his hand expectantly. You conceded, reached into your pocket, and as tears pooled in your eyes, you pulled out the last shred of power you had in this world. He took it and left. I never saw him again, but I remember the backpack sitting in the room that day. It stayed in the corner of our house for years, untouched and bare. I looked at this bag that morning at Starbucks and opened it.
Your insecurity.
Too heavy to pick up, it sat there. Your anger small and unyielding, your insecurity large and consuming. I began to understand. Dissecting the days, you spent rebuilding your self-worth with my tears and mom’s complacency, with the family’s fear of you.
I looked up once more into your grandfather clock eyes and allowed mine to notice. Notice how your salt and pepper beard sat coating your weathered face. Notice the frown that loomed over us like a grave and your eyes. Your tired, sad eyes. Turning away from me, you dragged a large trunk forward, my heart pitter patted against my chest while you opened it.
Your lonely.
I sat that morning sitting before your small anger, larger insecurity, and your gargantuan lonely.
Your lonely.
I was catapulted to the summer of 2012 when you stood outside our house door and wept in front of my mother. Your voice cracking and popping with pain. Those eyes heavy with desperation as you told my mother for the 64th time that it would never happen again. You would never paint her skin black and blue with your anger— She closed the door in your face for the last time. Over the years I would see you out about and in different places. But always alone. Always a single tear limping down your weathered face. But that day at Starbucks was when I finally saw you. I recognized your small anger, the larger insecurity, and gargantuan lonely. It strangled your being into the broken man sitting before me. Dad, I write this love letter to your broken. I see what you have been robbed of and where the world left you dark and crippled. So, that morning I kissed your cheek goodbye and vowed to always remember your broken and to love your broken. Dad, I love you.
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