Dear Dad,
I don't know who you are, (or who you were),
But I hope you're having a lovely day.
I hope you're happy.
I hope you have peace.
And I want to thank you for helping bring me into this world.
Even though I don't know you and may never know you.
Thank you.
Because I am so grateful to be alive.
Because I had two missed text messages
And I thought they were from you
Like the ones you used to make me when I’d wake up in your arms
And the ground listens to the birds speak
And the walls relax as someone else holds them up,
For once,
And the trees sink a little deeper into their roots
And the river is still -
For a breath -
And the bees take a break to admire their honeycombs
And the rocks melt back into the Earth as they finally let go of their expectations
And the seashells return to the ocean
Only to find they were never shells at all,
They were sea goats!
And it was the first time I heard “Jumpin’ Jumpin’” on the radio by Destiny’s Child
And we all stopped moving so we could listen
Because,
In those days,
You never knew the next time you would get to experience that masterpiece
And my round belly is poking forward in my yellow leotard
And,
Suddenly,
I’m holding onto the rings for my life
And suspending myself into the air
And I remember this spotlight?
Was this a dream?
Or a romanticized impression of my reality?
And,
Then,
I was trying to do the splits
And the teacher put their hands on my back to press me down into the floor
To force my hip sockets to comply
And never asked what I wanted
And,
One day,
I was at the swimming pool with my family
And my belly proudly poked through my usual two-piece bathing suit
And they pointed out the fact that,
"I probably shouldn’t wear that swim suit anymore [now that I was fat]"
And,
Then,
Someone stole my holographic Charizard card,
That I gloated over during recess,
And my yellow leotard no longer made me feel like the radiant sunflower I was,
But,
Instead,
I felt like I was the size of a school bus
And I was running in a circle
And I fell down
And someone laughed
And that’s when I stopped going to gymnastics