AN: Written for the How Many Ways Challenge. George, Fred, and Roxanne.
Lingering
I find you in the creaking of the floorboards
at four in the morning,
hiding in the scent of Mum's bread pudding,
laughing ten years ago with crumbs
stuck in the barely there hair on your chin.
Roxy gurgles her nonsense baby music
and you waltz in uninvited
staring at me through the wrinkle in her nose,
the wrinkle in my nose.
I want to look in mirrors again solely for her,
with her tiny curls and dark freckles
because Daddy shouldn't be scared
of the ghost tiptoeing
through his own skin and bones.
I am letting you go for her.
So I can finally touch Angelina without your subtitles,
finally look at my own hands without flinching
after a decade of cursing the gods,
all for the little girl who's grasping my heart so tightly,
for the only person I've ever loved even more than you.