Teaching Myself How To Mourn

Children of absent fathers walk around with empty baskets in their hearts, waiting for anything that resembles love to fill them up. A lesson in love: Your eyes are kind and beckoning, you must be a version of love You are present. Here. This is more than I've ever known, therefore you are more than enough. And yet... I woke up to your half-baked presence, swallowed my questions and would not let the vomit of my grumblings come out. You are here. That is more than I have ever known. Daughters of absent fathers wear their feelings like oversized coats with deep pockets. Can you not tell? How I am able to hold your darkness without being consumed by it. Oh darling, I have rinsed my soul in ink, drenched my heart in black so I am resident in the dark. I have walked a mile without light. I've lived my share of suffering and hid it deep within these pockets. These days, I cannot even tell where yours ends and mine begins. Questions on love: Did you know, daughters of dead men - in whatever form death may come - look for faces that most resemble or least resemble their fathers. They say this is love, an antithesis of death. This is presence, orbiting each other's existence though it choke the life out of me. Holding on tight though I choke the life out of it. Tata, ndinjenjenje nguwe. Masirhaxe phantsi kwalamanzi sobabini. Ngoba kaloku nguwe umenzi, ndim umgcini.