Gone...

Evening settles in and my thoughts turn to her. I think of her more often than not and sometimes the guilt that I feel erodes my resolve. She causes tears to swell from the depths of my tortured soul as I think of missed birthdays, bike rides and ballet recitals. She encompasses all of my successes and failures as a man and a father and with the batting of an eye, causes my heart to bleed rivers. She is the answer to, and reason why, I am who I am. She gives me strength at times and weakens me at others, but until I saw her, I knew not what love was.

I fall asleep at night under the cosmic expanse of the heavens and I miss her with each cell in my being. Renegade tears escape from their optical prison and soon the pillow that holds my head is damp with parental infidelity. I wrap myself in the memory of her laughter trying to warm my frostbitten core. I tell myself that it will all get better, that the dysfunctional epidemic that I have afflicted myself with will all end someday with a father/daughter dance and a butterfly kiss. But my lies are white and the blackness of night makes them hard to believe. She is miles away and I feel the distance. I feel the distance. I feel the distance like the shores of the soundless sea feels hurricanes. I feel the distance like a piano feels a note played in err because my soundtrack is so, so wrong.

I think about her smile and how it has the ability to change seasons. I think about her hand in mine and wonder when I will feel it again. I wonder when I will feel it again.