Fifteen

May 7, 2026

I lived in the attic of myself
all bits and bytes, the low hum of the laptop,
a man who could parse a feeling
but rarely take the stairs down to meet one.
I was never closed to you; only narrating
from upstairs. My first word for every feeling
was I think. You came in and lived in I feel,
and waited at the bottom of the stairs.

For fifteen years we've traveled like this:
I plot the route, the trains, the times,
the careful itinerary of getting there.
You decide what there is for:
the alley we turn down,
the meal we stay an hour past,
the bench in the sun we skip the museum for.
I have been getting us places.
You have been teaching me how to arrive.

And then you split my heart in two.
You did. You split it clean
and now they run around our house
on small fast legs, calling for water,
calling for you, calling me — Daddy —
down the stairs again
into the rooms where the living gets done.

Today Imogen asked you
why you fell in love with me,
and you said because he felt like home.
All this time I thought you were the one
bringing me home, out of my head,
down the stairs, into the rooms
where the living gets done.
I didn't know I was somewhere you arrived.