My Baby Girl

I, in her, see

more of myself

than I would

at this moment

draw her attention

to the facts 

beyond reason

logic or coincidence

that led her

to this door

to her baby flesh

she would ensconce

with her soul

The package of Heaven

she is

became so

the first time

I held

my little girl

Perfection is an occasional anomaly meant to confuse us. A red herring thrown into the matrix that distracts us from actuality. This is a continuum of peculiarities known to us as life. Collectively, from ascensions of mountains to decrescendos of sea sides catalogue jagged paths and obtuse curves in between composing what is our reality. Perfection as we know it does not exist. There is only a totality of which we are each one of its cogs.  

She is, at this moment, 15 years old and is who she shall be. It has been many years since she was first diagnosed with borderline autism. Long past are the meetings with teachers, councilors and pediatricians to map out plans for her special education. There are times when a parent looks at various characteristics of their child's developing personality, then turns to look in a mirror and say 'I know where they get that from.'

I have no doubt that as I watch my daughter grow up that if the term 'autism' were as prevalent in the 1960s as it is today, I certainly would have been branded as such. Over the years, various subjugations of my brain chemistry to altering factors such as yoga, hallucinogenics,

long distance running, lucid dreaming and assorted painfully traumatic and/or rapturously euphoric episodes have done much to change my perception of the world to one that may, at very least, be called, shall we say, unique. 

It is because of this realization about myself is one of the reasons I look at my daughter and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this kid was born to the right daddy. 

At this point in time I would not, for fear of teenage cynicism rearing its ugly head, say to her...

....I see you struggling to make sense of the world, alternating between fixations and oblivion.  Knowing you are different and unsure of what to change and what to let remain or where this set of circumstances roiling between your ears will ultimately lead you. For as long as I am daddy, I will always listen. My ways in the world may not be your ways and we may not always agree. But wherever you go and whatever you do I will always love you and believe it or not, even though I may be a clueless old fart, baby girl, I totally get you.......

My little girl

apple of my universe

lifter of my darkest curse

sweetest baby

to remind me

of my purpose

on this earth

to be your father

destined years

before your birth

to be your protector

guider and dissector

of the travails

that would come your way

not on my watch

until you

could deflect 

the decay

of shards and remnants

meant to do you harm

are on my radar screen

to disembowel and disarm

the parasites meant

to take my girl away

from her brightest tomorrows

I will make fall away

like broken dreams

of sleepless yesterdays 

Amber Rose, you amaze me in so many ways. Not the least of which is how much I love you.

All my love, always and forever,

Max