More Than Life Itself

Poems of Nostalgia

Eislyn P.O.V.

I open one door that seems a little more mysterious than the rest and find a girls room. Maybe for a six year old. I start coughing with all the dusk that's floating in the air. I walk over to velvet red curtains, pulling them open to see the sprawling tulip garden below me.

All of this feels so familiar for some reason. Have I been here before? No, I haven't. At least I don't think I have. But somehow my feet touch these floors, and I feel like I've walked them before. Not before yesterday but it's as if I was a child. That's so fucking weird. Maybe I should ignore that. That can't be a priority.

I turn around the see the most brightened room in this whole house. The walls a light yellow, fluffy white bed sheets, and toys along each wall. The brown bookshelf with childrens short stories and books stand out to me the most. 

I reach towards the shelf and pull out a Shel Silverstein poetry book. There are falling apart pink post-its that stick out of the top, and curious as to what I will find on the pages, I flip to one where a post-it is. There's nothing special except another poem. 

One of my favorites when I was a kid actually. My dad used to read it to me as my bedtime story each night before I fell asleep. Because I couldn't read, I memorized it. I used to fall asleep thinking about the words over and over again when living with my mother. 

So, feeling nostalgic, I decide to read it out loud. Relishing the feeling of the words coming off my lips. 

"This Bridge. This bridge will only take you halfway there to those mysterious lands you long to see: Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fairs and moonlit woods where unicorns run free. So come and walk awhile with me and share the twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known. But this bridge will only take you halfway there-the last few steps you'll have to take alone. By Shel Silverstein."

I wipe away the tears gathering in my eyes as I remember the old times that I can't help but miss. Gosh, that poem. Still one of the most simple and the best. 

"That was your favorite as a child. Your mother hated the fact that it talked about unicorns because she didn't think I should have been teaching you fairy tales. However, it was too late. You knew it by heart, repeating it in your sleep actually. And even though you knew it, never to forget, you always wanted me to read it to you."

"You're my father."

"Wow. You didn't even question it."

"I don't have to. You have the same eyes as me."

"You got your mother's hair though."

"She dyed it years ago, so we didn't look alike. That way I could pass as someone else's when out and about."

Mikeal clears his throat, clearly distressed about that information. Wait. He fucking left me with that bitch! I place the book carefully on the shelf. I walk up towards him and slap him in the face.

"You mother fucker!"

"You are still feisty as ever."

"You don't fucking know me! You're an asshole! You think that I'm gonna forgive you after you leave me with an abusive mother!"

"I didn't know she was abusive. At the time I left. After your brother died, it was my fault-"

"So instead of doing what was right, staying with me, being my father, you left. I was the child that was alone but alive. I was a child that had just lost her best friend in the whole fucking world. And you left me. Gone. My father couldn't look me in the face anymore because I looked too much like him."