The magician

It all started with him

The magician

Disappears without a trace

The illusionist always slipping in between the cracks

Never to be seen

Never to be heard

Like his father and his father

All magician full of smokes and mirrors

Fathers have always seemed mystical to me

I think of mine often at 1am the loneliest time of night

I see his face, I look nothing like him

He reminds me of music

The kind of music that plays in the background of tragedies

His name is sin

I dear not speak it

My mother talks not about him

She's washed him of her mouth

She has cleansed herself of him

Scraped his skin of hers

Cleaned every surface his ever touch

Burned his love and his letters

Cut his from pictures

Blinded her eyes of his face

I try as well

Not to see him

Not to think him

Not to write poems about him

But he makes his way to my fingers and I find him in every poem I've written

He makes his ways in to my dreams and I see him in all my nightmares

My father the magician

His Made his way into every heartbreak

Into every tear

Every doubt

Every insecurity

My mother says fast

Wash your mind of him

wash your hands of him

So I fast for days and nights I pray to forget him and his face

His name

I pray to be cleansed from him

From his magic

My father

The magician

Always disappearing without a trace

-inspired by Warsan Shire