my depressed 7sweepold💔

my father & i built sandcastles in skies; just the two of us.

we would ride city buses in the summer heat when our car lent itself to death,

we broke concrete with our feet as we ran through parking lots,

racing to first place or home or shelter or stability,

my father always let me win.

my dad made a hobby out of coin collecting. 

we would proudly rush home from the store to fill our pickle jar to the brim with pennies and dimes,

only to slip them into our palms en route to Safeway on sunday nights, 

silently begging cashiers to let us buy milk for our morning cereal.

my father has lived in the same apartment for twenty years,

too plagued with the fear of change and loneliness,

my father sleeps comfortably on living room couches

in lieu of the king-sized bed he deserves.

i am a queen in the eyes of my father. 

at the age of six months, i almost died in a hospital room

and bear the weight of near-deaths every minute in his eyes.

i live in fear of being the second child to leave him.

my father is a revolutionary.

he crossed rivers and oceans in search of better 

left a father and many mothers to make a home with one

and i, an interstate away,