The first question
I plan on asking my father
is how he dealt
with my mother's death
while sentenced to life in prison,
his experience now valuable to me
after the death of my girlfriend
made us both widowers of sorts.
I will re-read his last letter
where he claimed to be clean
off drugs for five years
my mother and I didn't get
to spend with him,
and at this darkened hour
I will ask my father
how he managed
to stay clean after
my mother's death
because I have
been struggling since
my girlfriend
drank herself to death
and need to perform
a miraculous
and fractured redemption.
I will whisper my
forgiveness to him
so the rest of the world
cannot hear me ask him
to show me how to live.
Kevin Ridgeway - Los Angeles, Ca