Love in an Envelope

Each week he sends his love in an envelope
Love, that is green and papery
It has no emotion, no feeling
No love.
He'd seal the envelope with the lips that once kissed her head
Showing how proud he was to have someone like her in his life.
He would sweep her off her feet with one brisk movement of his arm
And plant her firmly atop his shoulders.
Up there she was invinsible, unbreakable: on the top of the world
They would eat everything in sight, everything containing sugar
They're lucky to still have teeth
She beat him everytime at those silly carnival games
Those ground hogs didn't stand a chance.
Nor did the frogs flying through the air, praying to land in a lily pad.
But licking the cotton candy off their sticky fingers was the best.
Germs were no issue.

Where is this child?
She is grown up and looking for that father, that friend she once relied on.
All the memories, buried beneath the cobwebs in the back of her mind.
Behind sports, school, and boys.

Where is the father?
At work, in his tiny cluttered partment, at a bar
forgetting about the child
No calls.
Visits two times a month, if that.

While he sits with strangers at a pub somewhere wasting his life away,
that child is starting highschool.
Joining sports and making the team.
Getting good grades.
Dealing with the everyday pressures of life.
Aren't these the times he should be doing everyting he possibly can to be with her?
Be there for her?

These are the moments she needs him most.

He is no where to be found.

She wonders; why does he not make an effort to see me?
Am I not an important piece of his life?
Do I dissappoint him?
Does he love even me anymore?
These questions mean nothing.

Never again will he get the chance to truly know his daughter. She will wait no longer.
Yet although her patience has run out, she...

I will always love you dad.