The 28th

You left me before I even knew I could be missing something.

Like warm tea with no honey..

would you have made me sweeter?

Kinder? Softer? Gentler?

Would I know how to love harder?

Be less disobedient?

Are you the lost ingredient?

I feel like I was a mistake.

I feel like there is no reason for my being.

How could there be, when the one who made me couldn’t even see it?

I’ve been trying to find my meaning. My purpose.

Searching in circles.

They all lead back to you on that day.. the 28th.. when I came and you… we’re away.. and… I screamed and cried for days… and… my mother called you just to say… just to say I was okay… and… she knew you wouldn’t answer anyway… so she put the phone to my mouth as I lay… screaming for you on your voicemail tape… thankful I couldn’t pronounce your name, and… my mother saved that tape.. and… for a good laugh, she’ll let it play… and… I just… get to have this memory of being a newborn… screaming for a dad who never came.