Hi Daddy

Hi daddy, remember me? You drowned when I was nine. I'm fine, though I don't sleep too well at night. Worming around, it's hot. My feet get tangled in the sheets and I don't think about you until eventually I do. Are you still in that box, in the dirt? I picked the shirt that you were buried in but I didn't go to the funeral. Mum said, well never mind why. I want to dig you up and look at you. Do you smell like the ground? I would like to hold your hand when I'm feeling down. Like now. Even if it is decomposing or completely bones I think it would help. Things aren't going exactly okay for me and I want to sit on your lap and smell your neck. My friend is really sick and there's this thing with this girl and I know I could be happy but I need to sleep. Will you let me go? I promise I'll be back by ten. Sorry, sometimes I pretend that you are here in my memories, all those years when I was alone.

I saw you in the pool by the way, that day, and all I can remember is that you had a moustache and your hair was matted down in a straight line from your belly button to the rim of your bathers. I can't even think what colour they were. Is that strange? Sometimes red, sometimes blue. I don't swim much myself. That's obvious I guess. My girlfriend's name is Huo, that's Chinese for fire. She says I should take all my clothes off and jump in the deep end. She doesn't understand. Or she does. Either way, she got a job in Hong Kong and she's going. She's leaving me and that's what happens isn't it? In the end.