Bed of Winter

It’s quiet out here

in the snow

the morning sky still a heavy blue.

It’s peaceful here

right now

for a few moments.

I think of the screaming

I heard in my head last night,

it doesn’t scare me anymore.

It just adds to a sadness

how I’m irrevocably changed

and it makes me miss you.

You never disappointed me–I do that myself.

How would you look at me here? Now, in the snow?

How would you reach me

through the screaming?  Would you even try

I can hear the snow settle down

in the quiet bed of winter,

here now, when my mind is quiet

for just a few moments.

I wish  for your hand sometimes.  Your voice, your smell.

When I am sick I want you

but people leave it seems and I write

only for myself

but a young part of me

likes to believe you’re still here

I hear you in the  snow

how gentle and quiet

you were.

I want to confide in you

that I wasn’t brave

I was cornered

and I have no faith in myself anymore

maybe I never did

I’m writing a poem-letter to you,

my dead father, who didn’t believe I was yours

but you can’t come refute it now

I can make of you as I want

and aside from you

leaving and dying

I just want to pretend

that the hand I imagine in mine

when I fall down

is yours, you–loving me

enough to help me.