Thinking Over 'Thought-Letter to my Daughter'

Listen now as instead of thinking about writing I have a small breakdown!!

(I have issues with aural processing) (I find noises overwhelming sometimes) Like this time here now with a garbage truck and barking dog and neighbor noise it is in some ways about art and in other ways a documentation of the deconstruction of my cognitive functions when a little noise comes this way!

Well anyway enjoy

Here’s the poem for following along, of course:

Thought-Letter to my Daughter Goddamn it just this, listen I know you don’t know me well, it doesn’t matter; there are things I need to tell you hungover today from drinking an abominable combination of wine and Piña Colada abominable in your thirties and thereon so please, be patient, my head hurts. For this and other reasons we will not speak proper, driven apart by me we will only speak in this way, until nonexistence draws us nearer, close enough to hear until then just this, listen there were spring days when cherry blossoms would fill the sky and dapple light on your face, and i would sneeze heavily those days, and still walk to a park and lay in the sun and all along the walk were crawling flowers and a breeze and I thought not for a moment of work- there were really days like that and other days I would sit for hours alone in my apartment thirsty and idling and unable to move into the world, sad, alone, lonely, with no sense of life or its purpose no sense of pleasure there were many many days like that, too many, and in my time alone I wondered often about the possibility of finding something that worked a person and a place and activity that would allow for your creation. You cannot understand but neither could elementary school teachers or friends nor employers or church leaders so I won’t try to explain it. We had no chance, you and I, and that’s all an aside. In my poverty I met some people who’s porch was warmed by morning autumn sun and who had rooms that bled from one another, and they were generous- I think of them as I think of you I see the beauty in my peripheries and I see the impossibility of life before me, the unnavigable road from here to there, though I have tried for a long time to cross and even still am trying. When I talk of someday I am speaking on that effort. It is important you know how hard I am working to close the gap between us, that in my inevitable failure you see the violence of life, and cry for me, that you do not consider me like my father, who left, that he and I are placed differently, all of this is important. And also that you understand the life you missed was made against you too, that bread and cheese —many things, god, the dirt, the moss, lambs ear, to be doted upon, head-rested on and tear pool shouldered— were beautiful and delicious in their rarity, that when a friend touches you on your back it is an exception to the rule of existence, that it is the sole pleasure of a mired week or month. and If you ever come to see me, then one more piece must be true, which justifies your not knowing, that the gentle draft which cools the room in the evening is a silly good thing when compared to the reward of times movement, what I mean- its complicated- is that I was wrong about the balance, and you will be alright, all these things settled out: good and bad, yes and no, pain; if we ever meet you’ll know what I’m saying, the fruition of life evidenced in our meeting, that apology still needed. Listen, it’s gotten too heady, I can be that way, you don’t know me well enough to know, afternoon creeps on and I have to eat, shower, quit this, so I’ll say at last that we won’t, I’m sorry, don’t get me wrong please we never would have met; that’s all but I tried, a little bit anyway, and I hope you weep for me.

Love, Oliver.