You Take a Lot Out of Me

Can we talk?
I mean, since you’re dead and all,
and not really dangerous
and I get to make up your answers.
So, let’s talk.

I think of you,
when I think of you,
smiling.
Funny, that.
You never did much.
The good Lord knows
you were hardly fun.
Your smile was just that bright.

You were tall.
Six foot, five, I think.
Very dark hair.
Very blue eyes.
I still like that combination.
Little girls just love their daddy.

Daddy, what do remember of me?
Do you know I loved cats,
how I never whistled,
knew all the words to all the hymns,
dreamed of traveling the world?

I get sick to my stomach
when I think of the
you and I that weren’t.
We could have taken apart any subject
and fitted it into whatever shape we chose.
There were firesides waiting for us,
long evenings in the summer night air.
You never made the date.

Why was beer more fun than me?
Did you dance with those women,
sing to them like Jim Reeves?
Did you ever wake up hung over
and wish you had the guts to stop?
What were you thinking?

Did it get easier to disappoint me?
Or did it haunt you?
Do you remember before,
when Sherry was little,
and you were nice?
That’s how she says it.
“Daddy was nice then.”
I never knew you that way.
I wish I had been important to you.

You will be proud to know
you still have an effect on me.
The empty spaces in me were
never filled.
I have gotten used to them.
They itch sometimes now, hardly hurt,
phantom pain for the missing daddy spot.

That’s it for now.
I have talked myself blue in the soul.
Let’s wait a while for next time, ok?
It takes a lot out of me,
these little chats.
It always surprises me
just how you can still make me cry.