Eating My Words

Daddy, you are consuming my poetry.
Hungry for more of me than you ever cared to notice before.
I cannot write of cat’s whiskers and motes of dust in light streams.

Only you.

Dead and buried you live on in my creativity.
Spending more time with me now than when I was a tiny girl.
I sit with pencil and paper awaiting what has always flowed so freely.
Movement from the corner of the room shows you lounging against a wall,
tall frame of you, in taller frame of archway.
You cock your head and smirk, blue eyes chuckling merrily,
Open your mouth to speak, then don’t,
never revealing what amuses you so about my current discomfort.

You are here.

As surely as I took myself away from you those years ago,
saving myself and my child from your disdaining presence.
As surely as you looked right through me at a chance meeting in WalMart
not knowing until I blurted out, “I am Cindy, your daughter.”
As surely as you never stayed long in my life and brought havoc home when you did,
the way other fathers bring home souvenirs of pencils and t-shirts.
Why won’t you stay truly once and for all buried in the ground of Tennessee?
How did you find your way to Texas, and me, hungry for a piece of my mind?

Go away.

Or if you won’t, then let’s hear what you want
and get you gone
and exorcise whatever demons travel with you.
I don’t have space for them here.
This place of sanctuary is intended for me,
for my Ariane.
We already have a Daddy in residence
and he does nicely, thank you.
So wipe that smirk off your face and let’s get to it.
You want poems about you, well here they come.

Lunch is served.