reparations....

The irony of the purple heart stamp that the postman handed me
from behind his bulletproof glass window did not escape me.
The obvious cosmic zing because of where the letter was headed
did not for one second escape me.
It had taken me damned near 8 years to write it
yet it contained no more than 10 sentences.
All of them humble. All of them sincere.
Less than 60 words
(including the greeting and signoff)
to try to appologize for,
not every problem we ever had,
but specifically my disregard for gentle handling of
something fragile..
I knew that once I put it in the box it was out of my control
and I was going to have to let it be whatever it was going to be.
if I hadn't prepared myself to do that prior to kissing the envelope
and dropping it in the brass surround of the shoot,
I knew I'd be a goner.
Waiting for yet one more life altering thing was more than my brain could handle.
so off into the swell of mass mailings and letters home,
lost notes to santa
and careless postal workers
it goes.
I will only know where it ended up if
I get the call or the email that I have been preparing for for so many years.