birthday message in a card for my father.

virgo eclipse.

tenet (2020).

my father is the only person in my home who is not a tiger.

He is tall, lanky, and spends copious amounts of time outside in the garden. His sun is in Virgo and so is his ascendant. His moon rests in Sagittarius and I feel overwhelmed whenever I think about not having him around in my life.

I have a lot of memories of my father, and they are commonly wrapped in shades of sage green and sharp navy. But there’s one that sticks out the most and glitters like a small gem in the burrow of my brain. It ripples quietly with lethargic movements and has buried itself inside of me like an invasive species.

Sometimes at night, I unwrap it slowly like a gift and it tastes metallic on my tongue and pokes at my heart like a blunt-tipped knife.

I had another fight with my mother, a common occurrence that takes skin from me like a graft. I was tired and hurt, and it all crested like a giant wave over the tiny boat I stood on. The onset of an anxiety attack is so quiet for me and then cinches tight much like suffocation, and it feels pink as pain.

I couldn’t breathe, and I felt trapped in the foliage of a jungle, ripped in several directions. The only thought I had was to find my dad. It beat against the walls of my mind, like a mantra, a prayer even—just something that had the power to save me.

Funnily enough, as I write this, the thought occurs to me that he probably doesn’t remember this as viscerally as I do. With my father, you’ll never know, and it’s something that makes me smile because I’m just as emotionally reserved in real life.

Deep down, I will always believe that he remembers it the way I do. 

Running for my dad through the plants of our home garden was an experience. Maybe that’s my initial touch with the adrenaline of running a mile.

Our garden has this goal of taking up space and it seems to surround the house, large hastas with envy-green leaves and roses with thorns that drag at your heels. I could lie down and disappear for a while underneath the foliage.

That day though, the plants seemed to snake around me and threatened to snap my brittle ankles as I ran around calling for my dad. They wanted to eat me alive and then I was afraid and for the first (and close to only) time in my life, I was letting it show. 

I found him and he took my hands in his and had me breathe. It was my dad, me, and the sky. I focused on eyes that looked just like mine and learned to calm down, told my body it wasn’t endangered, and promptly burst into tears.

I don’t cry in front of anyone, except for my dad. It’s always by accident. My mother summons the same thickness in my throat, but I never let her win.

My dad is the only one who chooses not to be a tiger, who chooses to be kind to a thief. He knows that I am me and still hugs me. I could be the worst prima ballerina in the world, but my dad would still raise me into the spotlight.

I will always see in his face that I am perfect, even with my claws ripping up my skin. I am perfect, I am his tiger girl, and it makes me cry.

It makes me cry every time, back curled as I get ready to start or end my day, my love for him beating against the brown of my skin like millions of diamanté birds.

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the following is the birthday message i wrote for my father for his 61st birthday this year.

happy birthday, dad.

Every year it’s the same thing: I try to keep it concise and end up filling the whole card. Maybe I should get a bigger one. It’s funny because I don’t know why I pretend otherwise. I love you so much and I don’t know how to lessen it.

I would like to think that in everyone’s life, there is someone that they have a connection with. Someone who is an anchor to a ship, someone you always return to. I knew you were mine since I was small—a tiger daughter with a raging mother and tiger teeth too big for her mouth. 

Fathers are instruments of importance in a child’s life but you are inextricably linked to the core of who I am. Every wound I’ve had you’ve cauterized.

You make me feel heard even when I feel disconnected and crazier than everyone around me.

You have always been my resting place while also encouraging me to be strong on my own.

I’m trying to say thank you for being the man you are. Thank you for loving me when I’m ugly and mean and far from perfect. In every world, I hope you’re my dad.

I love you so much. Forever.