Dear You,

It's late again and I'm still up, unconsciously tracing the outline of your silhouette on my bedsheet. I've been unable to sleep alone for the last few weeks.  Just so you know, I haven't changed anything around the house, especially in the bedroom.  The setup is the same: I'm enclosed to my side while your empty space remains vacant. 

I've allowed your pillow to become a soft statute of your shape, if only the back of your head when last you lay beside me.  Admittedly, there have been times when I've coddled it, wishing it were you when separation anxiety transcended my other mental disorders. Are you happy now that you've driven me to desperation by disappearing?

Bravo, my dear, I must say if you wanted me to endure suffering, you've won many times over.  I know without a doubt it's my fault really, for never realizing how you relished tragic endings, considering how well you played the role of a victim.  Hell, I'd give you an Oscar for Best Actress if I could.  At the very least, a Golden Globe.

You left me on a Thursday night. We were lying together in bed and you were pretending to be my corpse bride.  You let the pretty words I whispered into your ear to dissolve, you let my love dissipate morbidly by the blank palette upon your face and lastly, you let our relationship die.  For what?  You wouldn't say.  How can I change this?  You didn't know.  Do you—is it possible—could you—would you continue to love me and stay?  I pestered you with these questions until you could take no more.  At that moment, you sat up, swung your legs over the side of the bed and got dressed in front of me for the last time.

The line you drew into the carpet with pointed foot and arched heel, I candidly could not cross.  You stared angrily at me, daring me to transverse your way.  If I attempted, I'd be trespassing into your personal space and proving that I did not respect boundaries.  A man, however, a man would have effortlessly invaded such territory; grabbing you by the waistline, telling you to quiet your mouth while tossing you back onto the bed. The end of course resulting in rampant sex: angry, Viking, makeup sex.  

But I wasn't a man, therefore I did nothing.  I didn't move from the safe comforts of the bed, where I'd spent my youth hiding from monsters, bogeymen, parents and now, from you.  I would've much rather faced brain-starved zombies or angst-ridden teenage vampires in love than to face your departure.  Reality became frightening.  The thought of me without you meant you with someone else.  The burden of losing you to Mr. Righter could only signify one decisive conclusion: I could have prevented all this.

Our final conversation was pure fallout.  The surplus of words randomizing in my vocal chords did nothing to dissuade your movement towards the door.  I became distraught and the deficit of honest, meaningful words that should have been pouring out of me slipped further into the red ink.  I did not ask you to stay.  I did not tell you I loved you so much I'd die without you.  I opted to give you silence instead when you walked to the door.

"Things are getting old," you said, calmly, almost chipper.  You were happy, bouncing buoyantly while watching my heart burst.  I think back with pure clarity on how much you must have despised me to end on such terms.  To leave in such a manner...

"Okay," I agreed.  You opened the door a bit, holding the frame against your cheek and though I couldn't see clearly, I'm positive you were stifling your laughter.  Those were the last words we ever spoke as lovers.  You stood a bit longer, languishing in victory and left, leaving the door open behind you.  

It's late again and I'm still up, wondering where you are and if you'll ever come back to me. 

I grew up with three overbearing women in my life.  I loved them, my mother and my sisters and floated behind them as a child.  Truth be told, I emulated them; watched them cry over nature documentaries where dolphins were slaughtered innocently with schools of tuna, listened to their phone conversations of riveting, jaw-dropping gossip that revolved around a Jesse, Vincent or an Anthony, how they carried a colorful friendship merely on their wrist and lastly, the rare gift of inspecting an emotion and deciding when it was ripe enough to be shared.  In their case, usually when it was too late.

As a boy, unexposed to the brutality of macho-inducted life, I tended to overdo my feminine side.  I was a hopeless romantic, light-years ahead of any limitation on male sensitivity, timid and unfortunately, soft.  Too damn soft.

 In fifth grade, I got laughed at for expressing my feelings about how much I despised water pollution and the destruction of our Eco-systems.  The teasing made me cry.  That invoked more teasing.  I got into a fight, no, I rebuke that last statement.  To actually get into a fight means I'd have to put up my dukes, be prepared to throw hands, rumble, brawl down, put up or shut up... I'd just get the shit beat the fuck out of me.  There's no other way to phrase it than that:  I got the shit beat the fuck out of me. 

In seventh grade, I secretly wrote a love poem for Adrianna Huxom.  She was half-Jamaican, half-Brazilian, cream-skinned with curly hair that resembled how the stairs to heaven would look.  She'd always use this peach body spray and every time she'd pass by, I'd tingle and shiver all over.  Later on, I would realize I was horribly allergic to it.  The love poem was found by my older brother during one of his nighttime raids of my belongings and by first period of the next day, Adrianna had read it and so had my entire seventh grade class.

She never looked my way again.  Except the day when I informed my class I was moving to Fresno, a crime-infested city nobody knew about, she told me then that my poem was alright and wished me luck.  Years later, I came to find that she gauged her love interests with my poem as the main criteria.  If they could outdo a wimpy kid who had never even kissed a girl before, then she'd give them a shot.  It took her until college till she found her King Arthur and the Excaliber poem.  Woot, I guess.

Living in Fresno took my emotional side and shot it in the face.  Let it bleed out and hoped for a painful death.  My sisters were all grown up and out, brutalizing the world one man at a time.  Or maybe two at a time, but I don't like to think of my sisters like that.  My mother was in a world of her own, dealing with my father and his stressors.  I was left to figure shit out on my own, the way a man is supposed to.  Problem was, nobody told me that.

I didn't cry when my mother cried anymore.  I didn't cry when people laughed at me anymore.  I didn't write love poetry anymore.  All of it was still there, waiting for that moment to come out, to overwhelm me possibly. 

I didn't cry when my daughter was born, yet I cried when she sang to me.  I didn't cry when my daughter's mother left me with a baby, yet I cried when she asked me back a year later.  I didn't cry in the hospital where my father lay in the ICU, dying in only his physical form, yet I cried ninety days later at his last burial rights. 

This boils down to a point, a convoluted point I'm slow to make.  I couldn't protect the women I loved then, but for damn sure I'll protect them now.  In Vietnam two months ago, someone asked my mother rudely for money, thinking that if he persisted she'd give in because women there are treated like rudimentary slaves.  I stood up, demanded an apology and if it wasn't in the way I wanted, I'd punch a hole through his chest.  A very sincere apology was given.

New Years Eve, I'm walking the wife down the hall out of the loft where we reside, and a group of drunk white college kids are behind us.  One of them chants, "Ching-chong, chong-ching."  It doesn't phase me, it doesn't bother me.  I'm the most diverse sonofabitch you'd ever meet.  The chanting continues, however, it escalates to - "Me so horny," followed by laughter.

As a man, I have to protect the women in my life.  What if my daughter were with me?  How could anyone disrespect women so easily? 

I turn around and walk towards the group.  They freeze in place, as if I were wielding a samurai sword.  There are four guys and three girls.  The guys are typical college scene kids, wearing lighter shades of gay polo shirts and the girls are pale and orange-toned.  I remember one of them having the worst acne I've ever seen this side of a Pro-Activ commercial, and I confront them.

Apologies resound across the hallway.  They blame it on their drinking.  They blame it on their ignorance.  They were so scared of me, just one man by himself, that when I saw them again later that evening, they continued apologizing.  Now every time I see them in the hall, they run back into their apartments.

Being a man doesn't mean having to fight.  It doesn't stipulate anger, doesn't give any justification nor cause.  I was willing to get a beatdown, and for what?  In the end, if things are bloody and broken, swollen and stinging, what was it all for?

I'd have to say that the women, the women that I love and emulate, will look at me and think to themselves, "I love him." 

Dat

Dear Emmalee,

It might come as quite a surprise to you, but when you were a baby, you used to bite your nails.  At the time, it was rare; you would bite them if bored with Blue's Clues or bothered by Ruby's bittersweet belligerence of Ruby and Max fame.  One kindergarten night after getting you out of the bath, I noticed your fingers bleeding.  You had begun biting your nails past the cuticle, causing them to wound.

I screamed.  I yelled.  I threatened to spank you within an inch of your life.  I slapped your hand every time I caught you doing it; I slapped your hand regardless even if I didn't see the act with my own eyes but my avid Father-spidey-sense knew you were doing it.  Nothing worked. 

Shortly after came the blowout: The utter blowout that changed the whole playing field of father-daughter relationships.  I was in my room on the computer, prepping for another tour out of the state, possibly FL or OR, I'm none too positive of which one, and you came into the room.  I kept you dressed in Old Navy an awful lot those days; they were cheap and I was tacky so it was a wonderful mix. 

You were wearing a yellow tank top and purple shorts.  You wore those shorts only because your mother's favorite color was purple.  You came in to hug me, to simply hug me and silently walk away as you normally did when I was busy on the computer.  However, this time I noticed that more of your fingers were bleeding and I went numb.

I had said, "If you continue to bite your nails, I won't talk to you ever again."

"No Daddy!  No!"  You had protested.  I was your world, and here I came to tear it down with a wrecking ball of blindsided impatience.  Daddy the demolitions.  Daddy with the demons.  Daddy, a title that perhaps should be earned as a privilege instead of passed out like fliers on the Vegas strip.

Despite your tears, despite your attempt to hug me again, I had pushed you away and said nothing else.  You walked out to your Dora the Explorer desk I had placed in the kitchen.  It was adjacent to your rabbit cage, the rabbit you named Sara.  Your mother loved that name, but for different reasons that I don't think you'll ever understand.  I hardly comprehend it.

You sat in your desk, placed one chubby arm down, laid your head sideways and cried.  From my room, I heard your sobs and something was off.  Your crying was different.  I peeked from a crack in the door and saw my beautiful little baby girl, pouring her heart out for her daddy.  Something she'd never done before at the time.  I had used my power, my ultimate standing with her to hurt her and I felt like I was choking on air I didn't deserve.

I let you cry.  I let you cry and cry while I watched, because I needed you to stop biting your nails.  Because getting my way was more important to me than keeping you safe.  Safe physically, of course, but my duty as a father is keep you safe emotionally as well.  I should have ran out there and picked you up and whispered, "I'm so sorry," into your little cotton ears over and over again until you'd push me away and forgive me.  My decision to stay in my room and let you feel as if your tiny world was shattering was not justified.

Emma, my little sunflower who speaks of full moons and distances between Earth and home, the girl who tells jokes to cheer me up.  Please don't ever stop talking to me.

Dat