A poem for my father that I hope he’ll never read.

You and I, we have the same blood through our veins,
And the same veins through our foreheads.
Living there, in the hollowed-out spaces between your vein and mine,
I became versed in the art of becoming transparent.

Slipping through wooden doorways dented and splintered by fury,
Stepping delicately over minefields hidden under plush carpets of kindred smiles,
My silent rhythms were tuned to those syncopated beats
that punctuated your tired tin can symphony of expectations.

In that place, I carved my comforts from the gaps
between our matching picket-fence-teeth,
and enclosed myself behind thick, sturdy walls
built from borrowed bricks of wry laughter.

Now, when my lover asks me why I love her so quietly,
I want to whisper to her:
When eggshells are your floorboards,
you learn to lighten your bones.

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