To My Long Lost Grandpa If I never met you and neither did my mother I'm not sure you're long lost. You're not long forgotten either. You're simply long gone. 44 years gone to be precise. I sometimes wonder if I'm at all like you since I look a lot like her. Is my nose just slightly different because of one unknown chromosome? Are my eyes just slightly greener because you stumbled along and happened to fall upon my grandmother? Can I blame you for my damn wonky teeth because it would really help if I could blame it on a phantom. That way people would never be able to prove otherwise and the shadow on yesteryear's windowpane can't defend itself. It's but a silhouette after all. Then again, I don't think I'd want to be like you. You are a deserter. You jumped ship. Maybe you have a family now that you stuck around for but there's a little one right here that you forsook to the wind. You did not do the right thing, for at least one instance of your #life you were not an honourable man. In that sense, I hope with all my heart I have not a shred of that in me. Regardless we got along just fine without you and I don't think I'd like to ever meet you or know who you were (are?). She and I and my sister are three fully-fledged functioning people who don't always get along and aren't always convincingly sane but who are pretty damn good. On second thoughts I'm a bit clumsy so again I could maybe blame that on your trespass. That would be nice, you can at least give me that you kind soul. So why should I seek out a tiny smidgen of my existence marked X? If he couldn't be arsed to stick around for a pitiful child I only know that X is a warning against poison. And you don't stick around to find out what poison does. #letters