never was my father's boy

.1. it is father’s day,
and my dad loves me,
because i am still his
little girl

he sets me up on
his strong shoulders,
and we go walking
around downtown

i stretch small arms up
to pluck a single cherry
blossom, and tuck it behind
his ear

2. it is father’s day,
and i have carefully picked out
a mug from the student store
at my elementary school

i carry it with me
on the hour long car ride
from my mother’s house to
my father’s apartment

he still had that mug the
last time i saw him at 18
years old

3. it is father’s day,
and we are not speaking,
and we are not speaking,
and we are not speaking

i buy no gifts this year,
with my own money or
otherwise, and i tell myself
it doesn’t hurt as much this time

i am very good at lying to myself

4. it is father’s day,
and i text my younger sister
as a joke

i lace up my boots,
shrug on a flannel that
is older than i’ve been alive,
and walk to work

i make no jokes about saving
money on cards or gifts
because it brings me
no comfort now

5. are you home sick 
for a place you’ve never been?

that place might be in the
circle of my father’s arms,
staying up too late together and
eating dinner as the sun rises

that place might be me in
a dress, my hair long and
tied back in braids, nodding and
smiling when my father calls
me his little girl

6. are you home sick
for a place you’ve never been?

hard cider and ibuprofen curdles 
in my belly as i examine the face
in the mirror that is as much mine as
it is a strangers

i note how my father and i
have the same wrists, and swallow that
homesickness for a place that never was
that rises in my throat like burning bile