Photo by: Nash Adelino
Published by: Clarence Pasco
Date Published: May 13, 2024
Time Published: 4:45 PM
Category: Prose
Theme: The unconditional love of a father
I turn to you because I realize that you are the echoes of nirvana. You are the escape. You are the entrance. You are the key that unlocks the greatest part of my life. I’ve always known you—not because you were there at my birth, but because I feel our souls are inseparable.
You say that you are the brawn and I am the brain but the beauty that I learned came from you. You taught me to fight the way you taught me to love. You showed me how to pack a punch and you showed me how to hug. You invest your time telling me of the dangers and yet you can only show me the best parts of life. You are a protector and you are an artist. I wish you saw yourself in my eyes, you are delicate only the best fathers can be.
The thunder vibrates through paper walls, and you find ways to soak up the tears of the crumbling ceiling. The lightning blinds me, you wrap your body around mine. I felt small shocks. Pain prickles my body no matter how much you try to shield me from the window. Your effort goes into hiding me to the forest corner possible and whisper to me lullabies only you and I knew. It was beautiful. It was too soft.
I asked you, If the lightning strikes in our home, where will you hide?
“In your heart. Will you save me a spot there?”
I tell you, It is cramped and impossible.
“How? We can make a spot for me, just for me.”
Your hand rests above my heart, I feel your love expanding it. This fullness inside my chest is heavy. This fullness inside my chest burns me only a fire in winter nights can. You cradle my heart and like magic you imprinted your spot there, we both knew only the shape of your heart can fit. My heart stays the same shape, no matter who or what occupied it, there is a place for you to hide in thunderstorms.
And it pains me that one day you won’t cradle me anymore. You barely do now; and, I burn only the growing fiery candles on birthday cakes when I whisper each year closer to the end. Not to your end, the end. It is the end of a fighter, the end of a painter, the end of a teacher, the end of a creator, the end, the end, the end. But with each candle I blow, the farther your memories go, my heart stays the same shape and waits for you to take cover. And when the end comes, and it will, your legacy ends with me giving all the love you taught me.
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