Domino

I write these words for you.
I write these words for you and every single person
you’ve ever been. That you’ll ever be.
I write these words for you.

There are a million things I’ve seen,
a million breaths I’ve breathed and I might
not have seen them all like I see them on this
cold day, but I know they’re there. In my chest,
near my heart, I feel them pumping in and out of my soul.

I write these words for you.
I write these words for the kids that I don’t have
yet. The kids I might never have—the kids that you
and I once were. The kids you may have.
I write these words for you.

I am a child full of wonder. Older than I
once was, but still full of all these fingerpaints
and lincoln logs. The dreams that won me Stanley cups and
the ones that broke me into sweats, that made my mother
rush into my room and put my head on her shoulder
and do the things that all mothers do until our hearts
are full of so much love and emotion they turn us
six years old. I write these words for you.

I once flipped through a yearbook from a school
I never went to, from a year that pre-dates my existance.
I saw smiling faces staring back at me like a hundred new
friends. These people I have never met, will never meet,
will never sit down and have a drink with. These people
with hearts full of love and hearts full of pain. These
people who have kids who dream of being princesses and who
on Christmas day light up like fireworks on the fourth of July,
beaming that same smile as their mothers and fathers who
I see on the page. I write these words for you.

And my Father who is a long lost friend. The man who lifted
me up as a child and made me so weightless and free that I
thought I was Superman. I am Superman. You are Superman.
There is nothing on this planet that can ever stop us from
flying. It is not his hands that made me fly, but his heart
his smile, my smile, the smile that we share, the smile of
those strangers in that book. The book that my Father’s
smile is forever captured, but never captive.
I write these words for you.

I’m going to show up at the party. I’m going to be
another smile in another photo. I’m going to hear that song
from my childhood—yeah, the one that I should be embarrassed
to know all the words to. And I’m going to dance.
I’m going to dance with anybody that has a smile that
reminds me of the strangers from that school, that looks
like I did when my Father held me high above his head and
we will fly together. We will transport into a time where we
are both smiling faces. She will smile and I will smile
and we will be free as flying children. My children,
your children, our children, our parents children.
I write these words for you.