ARCHIVE://FAVOURITE_FLOWERS.FILE

a poem about fathers, memory, and becoming someone else

May 19, 2026

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monitors glow in my irises
artificial light swallowing my resting places
computers breathe throughout my nights
cigarette ash line medicine tablets
on my tongue and the water used to swallow them
memorizing the ingredients on the back of the boxes
to pass the time

father I’m twenty now
my body negotiates for chemicals
psilocybin mushrooms mixed with capsules of alprazolam
I watch the pills break into fragments and dissolve
I still break for nightfall

I was a child, face tasting bathroom tiles
begging my body to stop fighting itself
so I could be dad’s favorite child again
sleep knowing someone knows the name of my favorite flowers

I search for my father in the man I know now
only leaving when I start twitching in his presence
my hair remembers the breeze of car seat air conditioners
the ache on my back during long car rides
the way my ears drifted when I heard his keys in the door
and the feeling of being a good child

I imagine a life with a bride now
father I saved you a seat beside the aisle
your heavy hands straightening the red in my black coat pocket
asking strangers if they’ve seen me smile like this before
I think your frame would stand too stiff during photographs
like my happiness was something you needed permission to hold

and for a night
I’d finally stop searching for daddy in other men

the way I feel your silence in my mouth
the way the air shifts in my arguments

I learned you
like the way someone takes their sugar in a cup of tea
I learned how to disappear
just by watching how you did it
from right underneath me

I’ll always check my locks before bed
standing in your doorways
leaving rooms with silence
habits that’ll outlive you

someone will move your untouched glass from the table
I’ll fold your unused place card into my coat pocket
beside the crushed red flowers
the venue will stack your empty chair against the wall
long after my music stops