A LETTER TO DAD
Dear Dad,
You're nothing more than a collection of images and ideas that I've managed to piece together with what you left behind. Trying to know is you like trying to write a book in a language I can't read that only you can speak. As soon as I think I've formed a sentence, it slips off the page and becomes nothing more than an idea.
I still can't tell if you were trying to hide from us, or if like me you couldn't find the words either. When I was young I used to imagine what it would be like for you to take me to prom, teach me how to drive…stuff like that. But…What happened to you?
Where did you go when you disappeared? What did you think of the world around you? How did it feel to be in your body when it began to betray you? Did you think about Angela Davis and the Black Panthers? What did it feel like to have drugs coursing through your veins? What did it feel like to run your fingers along a fence? When you jumped the turnstile at Broadway Junction did you ever think about me? Did you imagine that you'd bring me into the world and that ALL THIS WOULD BE THE RESULT??!
Did you imagine that I might follow you and be one-stop behind you the entire time?
I think about you all the time, but why? Like, what’s the point in pining after another man who doesn’t even know me?
I was thinking about you the other day. I was in Brooklyn, not far from my house. Brooklyn often makes me think of you. I try and retrace your footsteps. I imagine you sitting on a stoop, waiting at a corner, or in the arms of…someone. I was standing at a crosswalk and just before I stepped into the street a young Black man ran across the intersection. There was a shout and a gunshot. I turned towards the sound and about 10 feet away from me was a Black man pointing a gun into the air and shouting.
He looked like he felt like a king.
So I bowed. I threw my body to the ground and with my face pressed against the pavement and waited. When it was quiet and then RAN. The first person I thought about was you. I thought about you running for your life.
Pause
And you wanna know what’s crazy. I was on the phone with Mom. The entire time.
Love, Eleanor