Cat's Cradle

My father is about to die from living too hard.

Saturday was his birthday, and seeing as how I had come full circle home, I went out for lunch with him and his president of the world sibling.

My father has become a child.

His eyes are full of water that has stood still too long. Sentences slip over his fingerprints, and as he put it after eyes from his sister, his liver is shot.

It was then calmly explained to me that my father had been living unbeknownst in filth and unemployment and bottles and they had only found out because his blood had decided to explore parts of his body it did not belong in.

Oh, and Hepatitis C.

My father has poison for blood.

We then went shopping for new flooring in an attempt to clean up what he had forgotten to do to his home. Except I was asked to make the decisions, because it is to be my house soon.

My father is about to go out into everything.

And I am ready to let him.

The Magi asked me during a first sleepless night of learning each other what my deepest secret was.

I told him that I would not be sad when my father dies. I know I ruined it with that boy, but I will appreciate that he let me give the tip of my tongue that came crashing back when I was asked, a few weeks later, for a tip of my liver.

It's not hate. It's not revenge, or apathy, or anger.

I am tired. And life will be so much better for that man when he no longer has it.

My father is going to lose big.

I never expected anything else.

Don't Be a Stranger to Yourself

The lovers revolve, but the picture is always the same.

It's usually blurry from my love of hiding from lights.

I'm never actually looking at the photo. But whichever fascination has decided to capture me, they usually get it.

Genuinely happy. It's a smile that used to be reserved only for the moment in question.

But recently, they have been shedding some light on it.

I never know it's happening. I will be pressing buttons late at night, and come across that moment, now pixelated and glad I was the only one in the room.

And tonight, as I stumble over the most recent evening of a self inflicted silent phone, I have found another.

It could make me sad. It could remind me of how I have run.

Instead, it reminds me that sometimes, in the early dawn or late afternoon, when I have reclaimed an old plaid shirt and given up on everything else,

I have made these moments, and

I really am happy.