The Sunshine Steps

Dear Judge Buchanan, The light that illuminates from the sun spilled over his shoulders That were hidden underneath a navy blue shirt And his feet were slipped into a pair of polished sneakers With untied laces that periodically got stepped the life out of, every 4 steps or so As he skips, hops, jumps, and dances His way down the sidewalk I stumble a few elephant-sized steps behind him Nervously, like an unconfident teenager making their way to a podium I feel so incredibly nauseous Part of me, tries to convince myself That we are not going where we are headed As I put my thoughts to the side The overwhelming feeling eats me alive I. left. The. Stove. on. We have to go back If we don’t leave now, the entire apartment will burn down! And I can’t take my son to a pile of ashes and call it home. Then, where will we sleep at night? We won’t have anywhere to sleep at night! We have to go back, We have to go back, We have to go back ! I refuse to live out The Pursuit of Happyness It was sad enough when Will Smith’s son was starving I don’t need it to be mine. But when I look up, And take in the atmosphere Of babies whose empty bellies make them cry And kids with nightmares who can’t sleep at night But they come here and find a way to be happy I cringe, we’ve made it The Park But when my eyes try to find a navy blue shirt to tell it I probably left the stove on or the door unlocked or the sink running He’s standing on a swing, swaying Back and forth Back and forth Back and forth Back and forth And I see his pupils circulating the world in random directions In an attempt to look for me When they succeeded He unzips the soft zipper across the bottom of his childish face And the oceans God stole from the world To make his eyes brighten when they meet mine And he blinks twice as much than any boy should His lashes long, but light Seem to be able to glide off like butterflies And then it hits me And I didn’t think it was possible To have something fearless and beautiful Come form me, but it has I never thought it would Even when I prayed for him when he was born It was never for fearlessness or beauty It was for him to be anything, but me Please God let him be anything but me I would tell God, Our Father who art -art-art-art in heaven, Hallowed be -be-be-be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom -kingdom-kingdom-kingdom come. Thy Will be -be-be-be done, On earth as -as-as-as it is in Heaven -heaven-heaven-heaven Give us this day -day-day-day our daily bread And -and-and-and forgive us our trespasses- trespasses-trespasses-trespasses , as we forgive those -those-those-those who trespass against us -us-us-us And lead us not -not-not-not into temptation, But deliver -deliver-deliver-deliver us from evil. Amen- amen-amen-amen (Matthew, 6:9-13) I was 4 years old, when my mom Taught me that prayer And I recited every fourth word 4 times I will never forget that that was the year I had found my favorite book It was the fourth book I learned to read All by myself ...Green Eggs and Ham Because I am Sam, Sam is who I am And I hate it so much I hate that I am 27 and my favorite book is still a book written by Dr. Seuss I hate that I love the number 4 more than I like most people But they’re just so contaminating I hate that I scrub doorknobs till the paint comes off I hate that I like the smell of latex gloves I hate that I wash my hands till they bleed And I hate that I can’t go to the park with my son. He’s four And I’m afraid that I will stop loving him When he turns five But there’s part of me, Way deep down Telling me that’s impossible And I’d like to believe it But nothing is more certain than the way He runs toward me Sees my sweaty palms He says, the park is just a place to play I nod telling him I know I make a clean cloth appear from my pocket and put it on the grass I dip the backpack onto it so it won’t sink Slowly unzipping it To present to him the classic white and red picnic blanket That’s a lot more white than red Because it’s been bleached too many times And it’s thick so the wet grass won’t seep into our clothes I ask him to lay it down for us As we adjust ourselves onto the blanket He sits cross-legged, slouching over, glasses falling to the tip of his button nose And I sit as well With my knees up, my hands secured to them tightly And continue to breathe deeply When my eyes focus on his bummed expression Like camera lenses I begin to feel slight pity for myself, But mostly, I feel nothing, but shame As I’m sure he feels If not embarrassed that he was the unlucky kid Who got the bottom-of-the-barrel type of father And when I begin to apologize for something I can’t control but I wish I could He laughs because my flannel shirt matches the picnic blanket I roll back the corners of my mouth To make it look like I’m smiling But mainly to keep from crying As I make food appear from the backpack like bunnies from magic hats He grins and I make him use hand sanitizer twice But then I can’t help but think of 4 and make him use it another 2 times I give him a container that holds a sandwich and goldfish crackers But of course they have dividers So the food that is not meant to touch Doesn’t. Because he won’t eat it otherwise We begin to eat And I ask him how he feels about starting kindergarten And I try to ignore the fact that he won’t be my favorite number anymore He tells me of his hopes and his fears But my favorite part of our conversation Is when he asks me if I can go with him When I tell him, “no” He makes an expression I’ve never seen him make One that I hope he never would And I look at him And his lips have created a crescent moon that is faced downward His bottom lip puffs out But he tries to hid it The way fireflies try to hide light And I’ve done this so many times So I know he’s holding in tears I ask him why he’s so sad And he explains how I have a way of making things fun Like cleaning sinks, counting footsteps and making a game Of checking if all the doors are locked at night And how things are just better when I’m there He says He likes that his dad is different than all the other dads And get this, When he grows up he wants to be me He wants to be me As we pack up our things, He asks if he can carry the back pack because he knows I’ll freak out If there’s any dirt on it As we begin to head home He tells me he has another question And it’s if we can count the footsteps together Cause he’s aware that I’m already doing it in my head So we start again, but slowly 1 2 3 4 I think I can make it to 5.