Deep — deep in the attic of my heart,
I stumbled across an old love letter,
honey-faded, like a memoir of Moroccan sand,
a little squashed beneath the stack of memories past.

It was crushed at the bottom of my treasure box,
for it was one of my very firsts…

One of my very first attempts at spilling my heart onto a page,
one of my very first efforts at capturing someone I love
in the trusting arms of my crayons.

Yes, I stumbled across this
delightfully smudged letter
and in it, I found you
(albeit a lopsided version).
I found my dad.

A dad who listened,
like the dry savanna grass listens for the first drop of rain,
a dad who spoke color into me,
like the spiraling raffia baskets spoke indigo into the sky,
a dad who loved me,
like my hair loved the seasoned air hovering over the ocean…

I love what I found in that letter:
a preserved Crayola memory of you,
always there, waiting,
deep — deep in the attic of my heart.