Every year since his death, on my father's birthday I write him a letter. This is an amalgamation of those letters, a poem that changes each year. 

Dad,
I know how you feel
as a bag of sand. A body
is only a dustbowl-- a pocket of dust
encased by roots in a world which
is only earth.

I know how you feel as a cold
breath 
which happens only once, 
eventually.

I know how you feel when I'm on top of a mountain,
seeing for miles without ever seeing a thing.
Up here I am seven years away,
however loud I yell,
there is no breeze to carry
me to you.

Eventually, 
I'll resort to smothering 
my nose in your old shirt-
     a placebo scent...
something to remind me you are
not only sand. yet
you are and me,
only worth as much as the space
I            can         take            up,
the air I can
swallow, the love I can
give. I know

how you feel as a man
anything but                               air.
the feeling of gravity,
the mind. i am only
as much as my eyes
will see, but could there be a way?

of speaking to sand? a way
to communicate without
words or sound...
a way of being.

Dad,
I know how you feel
as a memory  I try to 
recreate.
more than a decade
cannot separate me from that day.
no matter how many times
I follow the recipe I still
fucked up the cake because I 
didn't listen to my damn nose. I am
only as much as I am capable and
right now I cannot even bake a cake.
I cannot recreate the memory,
days of bickering, measurements, and.             joy
the joy

of creating and giving for the ones you love.

I lift the old shirt to smell you
find my nose is shot, worthless, caput. not even
a placebo of the man who
held me as an infant. the more time
goes by the more I know

how you feel as simply nothing
that is, good for                          nothing.
I'll force it, but I know
how you feel as loved,
cherished... so I start

over-- make the damn cake and I don't
fuck     it          up and I          eat        it     up
even the crumbs, even the 
dust...
like I can consume a memory to make it last
because I am the remnants 
of you. I am 
only worth as much as the love
I can give myself. 

“happy to be here”
coconut cake