a 12 minute phone call

My father and I 

Recently started speaking again

He says I turned out just like him

Not quite meant as a compliment

But I must admit I did inherit his eyes

and with that an obduracy that left phone lines 

cold

A daughter’s request for a missing piece of her puzzle

And the silence that was heard in return

Silence that burned

The last rope tying an unstable bridge went up in flames

And naught but a whisper on the wind was heard

When I waited to hear my name

Nothing came

I wonder if I’m the only one that wonders if

I was wrong, if I still am

That thought carried me across the divide

I was met not with open arms

Rather a steel shield

and arrows launched from the battlement

I carry on my shoulders just unburied

the hatchet from the ground

the hurt from my voice

again disguising that which I desperately need

as dust to be brushed 

under a rug to be pulled

from under my feet

But my father and I are speaking again

Newly healed wounds slowly split open

His vitriolic sneer is salt in them

His voice is unfamiliar and casually careless

But my father and i are speaking again

Maybe this was a mistake

Please don’t hang up

Tell me why I must work so hard to be loved

And still met with a cool dismay

Please don’t hang up

None of this I say

The call ends in 12 minutes on Christmas