back & forth 

i pour out a hundred bags of doritos 
on my living room floor for when 
dad comes to visit. 
we will sit with each other
in the cheese coated corn chips
& he will tell me how much he loves me
by eating handful after handful &
he will know i love him because
i poured there here.

dad emails me late at night
ties his letters to bright pixel pigeons
made of doritos. they peck 
at my window to be let in.
he says that he will always catch me
when i fall & builds 
trampolines all down the street
in case i try to jump out a window.
i'll test them out one day 
so that he doesn't feel like his work
was for nothing.

we love each other back & forth like this.
like stacks of wooden pallets broken down
to make catapults
which i use to hurl 
bright blue rock candy.
he picks them up before bed chews 
the sugar crystals.

so he has to send something back 
& he tries to remember what kinds
of foods i eat so he buys fridges
of pineapple Chobani like i used
to eat in middle school, lines 
the fridges up on every wall 
of my living room.
i pantomime eating the yogurts--raising 
a spoon & performing a swallowing gesture
so that he feels useful & doesn't know
that i don't care for them anymore.

he builds me a bed out of
fishing wire so i can dangle
from the ceiling 
& never touch the floor again-- 
he invents a pulley system to cradle me--
to let me swing from room to room
i don't tell him i can't use this all the time--
i tell him it works fabulous.

the next time i visit my parent's house
i wait till he's asleep to get him back--
sewing thick protective gloves
onto his hands-- the kind one might use for welding
i use the same 
thin invisible fishing wire &
i hold his gloved hand while he sleeps.
i tell him i will never let anyone hurt him
& i will sew a thousand gloves on every
surface of his skin.