A Habit of Losing Things

I used to spend hours helping my father find his stuff.

Like for instance, we spent 30 minutes looking for his glasses only for me to look at him and see them sitting on the bridge of his nose. “They are right in front of your face you jackass,” I would proclaim in mild frustration but mostly in humor because this was a normal thing to happen. He would laugh his hardy, gruff belly laugh and go on his way.

Almost eight years since I have heard that laugh that still resonates in places of my soul I dare not look, for fear I’ll drown in the depths of sorrow- almost eight years since I held his hand, felt its warmth - made sure to note the calluses on each finger made by trying to hold onto a life that wasn’t meant to carry things so heavy, so full of thorns. The things he thought beautiful.

I looked at his hand in mine and I compare the two. Tried to burn the memory of the way those tired, worn hands felt into my own skin because I knew it would be the last time I got to feel him. But the thing is, I was the only one to ever feel him. No one understood your demons quite like I did, did they Daddy?

It’s been longer than eight years since I’ve helped him find things that were lost but something I find ironic now is I that I have a habit of losing things.

Like, I haven’t found my glasses in five months and it was around that time I lost myself to a man who lost himself to a woman.

Since then I’ve searched every single crevice of my home and cannot find my glasses, therefore I am unable to see.

Unable to see my self-worth. My eyes are as blurry as the lines I’ve drawn between what is good for me and what I thought was supposed to be love and I find myself blind.

Searching with my eyes closed for things that are missing within myself. Missing. Missing. Missing. Missing. Myself.

Now I’ve lost my favorite pen and so I’m talking to myself “Why are you so forgetful?” “Why do you misplace the things you need?” My inner voice, that place I avoid with my eyes closed and hands over my ears says “You lose everything you love, you lose everything you need.”

I think back to my father's life and his habit of losing things and it wasn’t just things it was women he just wanted to fix because he could see the beauty of the petals but didn’t care about his bloodied hands from the thorns and daddy you cannot fix these broken creatures LET GO, I scream. But too late.

You say you love me.

Broken hearts can be repaired and I know mine is one of the strongest so I hold on. Lies become truths and truths become realities and I’ve always been a realist but I still wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat on the verge of tears I refuse to let fall. The nightmares just remind me that my life is a living breathing thing inside me that won’t wake up to face the facts. But you’re petals are worth the blood dripping down my finger tips..

Its been nearly five months, I haven’t found my glasses. But they are right there on the bridge of my nose and I can see.

The facts.

You can kill someone with your words. Like a dagger in my back but I am unable to reach it to pull it out so I will let it stay to remind me why you are not worth the petals.

I never realized how much my father and me were alike until I started to lose things.

Daddy, I promise my hands won’t be scarred and callused from holding onto things that are worth losing.