Poetry by Natalie Valentine

     Timo Newton-Syms CC




An Initiation to the Dead Dad Club or A Wolf, Crying

i have been writing poetry my whole life trying to make sense of you, 
I have been asking questions to the big sky: 
how do you grieve someone still alive? 

but now you are not, suddenly - 
so suddenly, “around seven” last night - 
part of me thought you would live forever, somehow 
you were always full of life - terribly so

and i still have so many questions i can’t ask 

when mom told me you were gone, i thought it was a cruel trick - on your part, not hers, a last-ditch effort to get us to speak to you again. 

a wolf, crying, 
the way he’s wept my whole life. 

and for so long, every time, i would approach - gently, quietly, lowvoiced, as you approach wild animals - 
and get wounded for my efforts, for my softness 
i learned to give myself stitches in this way  

this grief is easier - and harder 
i am crushed under the weight of sorrow 
and the weight of strange lightness

the last day i saw you was my 29th birthday. 
i’m 34 now. 
i was struck then by the earth-shattering knowing that i would never see you again - or my grandmother, or uncle, both lost to the veil in such quick succession. 

i was in miami last year when i was struck with a second knowing of this kind. sitting across from michael - our hands knotted together between us, 
“i am never going to see him again.” 

i will miss you. 
i will miss more the person you could’ve been, 
before drugs, before drink - 
before your addiction to rage, the despair you couldn’t name, refused to name 

“he was supposed to be my daddy.” 

how are you supposed to tell people your dad died? 

i guess like this 

we spoke for six months last year, all on the phone
i gave it one more try. one more chance. 
you seemed so, so - alone 
you told me, solemnvoiced, you were a changed man,
interspersed with screaming at nurses and doctors who only wanted to help you, 
when taking a break from telling me the many ways i’ve failed 

“why couldn’t he just be nice to me?”

still. 
i’ll miss you forever. 
i have loved you the best i could, 
the way i am told you loved me. 
i think i will always wish you had read some of my poetry.

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Natalie (they/them) is a poet, playwright, and maker. They have worked as a writer in theatres across the United States and with the zine Indoorsy. If you're looking for hopeful queer stories with a touch of melancholy, you're in the right place.