Second Chances

(I read this at open mic, but it means a lot to me so I thought I'd post it up on my blog for anybody that didn't get to hear it.) 

It's 1 minute past 8 o'clock and I'm still speechless. The words I wish I could say to the man that helped raise me are stuck in my throat like bricks. My insides are liquid. My lips bleed from the stuttered words that are forever caught in them. They cut like razor blades, and when unheard, stab like knifes. I've tried to shed this invisibility suit too many times to count, but it's stapled to my thighs and sutured to my fingertips. I'd peel every cell from

 these bones if it meant you'd see me dad. 

The past has shaped who I am today, and thank god it's given me wings.  Made up of smiles, and memories, and lessons learned. They're beautiful if only you'd take the time to look. But all you see is the teenage angst and late nights I walked through the door an hour or two past curfew, or the meetings I had with my bishop about heartbreak...because that's all it was dad. God called it  sin. Mom called it human nature. You called it disappointment. And I called it heartbreak, and my broken heart called it a cry for help, and in the early hours of the morning I helplessly cried for you. I needed you like the grass needs the sun, but the light I so desperately craved was aimed towards a computer screen and giving nutrients to a worry free life you thought was needed. 

I wanted so badly for you to be proud of me, but you've only ever been proud of the thought of me...that people thought your daughter was beautiful and well spoken and smart...except I've never felt those things because not once have I heard them leave your mouth so they could enter my ears, and I needed that. I needed you to tell me I was all those things and more so that I could finally believe them...but you couldn't. You couldn't tell me that I was smart. You couldn't tell me that I was beautiful. And you couldn't tell me I was well-spoken. You couldn't wrap your arms around me when I cried. You couldn't threaten to kill the redhead that stole my soul. You couldn't be on time to anything that's ever mattered to me. You couldn't understand why I lost myself when I lost my bestfriend to cancer. And I don't think you'll ever understand why an hour of words won't fix 7 years of silence...but I'll forever try to force you to understand that as long as I'm still forcing air in and out of these lungs, I'll forever give you second chances because I'm hoping that one day you'll see past these worn out wings and take one.