🔵 By Myron Dailey. Photo by lauragrafie.
Broken Native… Hopeless Creative…
Hopelessly in love with a person I took part in creatin’.
She’s a future mother. I was a boyfriend, son, and brother.
At 19, a kid with a kid… it is what it is.
Parenting competency.
Some decisions my mother made pervade dreams that are haunting to me.
Arrows that pierce the ego, constantly launching at me.
Bonfires stronger than Hades, burning me down to ash… victim of culture & class.
Rarely… do I see faces, I see masks…
Mosaics of the future and past.
Woven together, presenting the present, we better together, isn’t it apparent?
You callem’ step-father but he’s not the parent.
Kid-napper… we arguing loud while the kids nappin’.
This is cyclical, what we going through… been happenin’.
You look miserable.
Ya’ waist has expanded, ya’ eyes heavy.
Searchin’ for love… jumpin’ over dollars to grab pennies… you petty.
How can I be faulted?
If you only knew the height of obstructions I’ve vaulted; multiple times; chasms I’ve bounded.
I’ve never absconded from duties of being a father…
I’d rather have my daughter than have air or water.
The looking glass self… got people looking at me like I’m beyond help.
Cooley & Meade, truly indeed.
Raising children is a duty to me, and I feel honored.
The streets language arts is ebonix; heart harder than onyx; these jewels of wisdom crash from the skulls of kings that are giants.
Impactful statements leaving craters on the minds of the non-compliant.
Slavery taught us to bet children who show signs of defiance.
I’m beyond a bread-winner, more emotional care-giver, those moments with my daughter… I’m glad that I shared with her.
I never wanted to be the father to apologize, watchin’ tears well-up in my child’s eyes, reminiscing bout’ absent times.
Perhaps at times, I could’ve been better.
We chest to chest… I hope my hugs kept you warm like a sweater.
Please don’t love another man, instead of, your true father… who knew better but didn’t do better, whose foresight wasn’t farther.
I could spend a fortune on artists making things in your likeness.
Still I’d never capture your brightness.
– Love Dad.