Excuse Me As I Kiss The Sky (Button Poetry)

by Rudy Francisco

WHAT IS PROGRESS? There’s a gap between who I am and who I want to be, but every day I watch it become a little smaller.

I’M THE KIND OF PERSON that will what if? a situation until all the steam is gone, will think about the soup until it’s cold and then stomach the after. I’ve been known to debate myself into a corner and call it home.

TODAY, I TOLD A JOKE TO MYSELF and laughed so hard that it made all the silence in the room uncomfortable. The quiet left immediately, said it didn’t feel safe around so much bliss. The only things that stayed were me and all this joy. Is there a better way to live?

WHAT I OWE THE MIRROR I hope you have the bandwidth for forgiveness and enough room in your palms to fit an apology. I saw you drowning, watched your arms confetti into the water, and I only gave you feedback. Heard you yell fire and showed up with gasoline just to see if you could survive the furnace. I should have been softer with you. Could have held you differently. I’m sorry for all the devastation I created in the name of tough love.

To be honest, I thought this feeling was a pair of hand-me-down jeans: something too big for me right now, but a garment I would grow into and then out of as I got older. But here I still am, trying to be a father to my daughter and myself.

I was told my father left for the Vietnam War, but only his body came home. I have no idea who he was before PTSD grabbed him by the happiness. My dad is one of the many rocks that America threw at another country, and eventually that country decided to throw him back.

Forgive them. They didn’t apologize, and you’re still mad, but what I do know is this: a closed fist can punch through a wall, but you can’t fix the hole until you open your hands.

The truth is we aren’t here long enough to drag around this much apathy.