Dear Dad’s

The Sandman and I have been conspiring again. He keeps slipping silver-threaded stories beneath my pillow, And keeps planting impossible fathers in the plots of my sleep.

In those dreams, you arrive riding a stag cross stitched from hope and apologies. The stars float lower. The wolves vacate their watch. The clocks forget to count all the years between us. And even the monsters emerge from the dark without baring their fangs.

I know.

Magic is a dangerous thing for a daughter to inherit. I’m learning that if you give a lonely child enough fairy tales she will spend decades mistaking hope for a homing beacon.

She will leave lanterns lit in every window of herself. She will become fluent in the language of one day.

One day he will call. One day he will come. One day he will chose me. One day.

When I was little I had a secret, I thought every monster was secretly waiting to be loved one day. That the dragon only needed a bestie. And the witch only needed a hug. The beast only needed someone patient enough to see the prince hiding underneath. I would leave mom doll heads in my dresses Sleep with pumpkin seeds underneath my pillow.

Nobody told me sometimes the dragon likes being a dragon. Sometimes the witch locks the tower herself. Sometimes the beast is not a spell waiting to be broken.

Sometimes the beast is a man standing beneath fluorescent lights in a liquor store at 10am, choosing his loneliness again.

But dad, every night the Sandman arrived with his pouch full of maybe.

Maybe this Christmas.

Maybe our birthday.

Maybe this award ceremony.

Maybe this phone call.

Maybe this life.

And he scattered those maybes across my bedroom floor like enchanted breadcrumbs.

And I followed them.

For years.

For decades.

Through portals in therapy. Where I made a wickerman full of breadcrumbs and called it love.

Because, Dad, I have met you ten thousand times. Not the you made of whiskey and weather-warning voicemail messages.

The other one.

The one I crafted from wishbone dust, wishful thinking, and whimsy bedtime stories.

The father who remembered. The father who arrived. The father who chose me.

He arrives just after midnight, boots damp with dragon blood, carrying every birthday card that got lost somewhere between intention and arrival.

In one dream,

you sit in the front row

while I hold an award against my chest like a frightened crow.

When they call my name,

you stand first.

Your applause is so loud it startles the phantoms out from beneath the stage.

The audience turns. They think I won because I am talented. They do not know

I won because my father finally showed up to my murder.

In another dream, you help me perform an exorcism of expectations.

We kneel beside the bed together and pull the phantoms from my ribs one by one.

There is the ghost who believed if she worked hard enough someone would choose her.

There is the ghost who mistook smoke screens for live action films. Leaned a little to heavy into rom-coms meets horror films Learned the hard way not every man will give you a leaf

There is the little girl who kept building castles from receipts, report cards, and accomplishments,

certain her father would eventually follow the trail of gold stars home.

And you hold each ghost gently. You thank them for protecting me. Then you let them leave. And the room smells like rain afterward.

Dad, I have imagined entire kingdoms around us. Enchanted lakes where fish glitter like fallen constellations.

Forests where wolves do not eat children, they apologize.

Castles with open gates.

Long roads that always lead home.

I have imagined introducing you to the people I love. Imagined hearing pride instead of excuses.

Imagined discovering that every fairy tale was only delayed.

That somewhere beneath the alcohol a king had been sleeping for decades, just waiting for the right spell to wake him.

I spent years choosing fantasy father over real father.

Believing every missed birthday was simply a delayed arrival.

Believing love was patient enough to outwait addiction.

Believing the story wasn’t over.

Believing you were still on your way.

Dad, there’s this thing called reality where

The truth is crueler.

The king never sleeps.

The king chooses.

And sometimes

he chooses the bottle.

Sometimes

he chooses the monster.

Sometimes

he chooses not to walk through the door.

I spent years believing there must be a curse.

That if I searched hard enough through haunted vacant towers and thorn-covered kingdoms

I would find the spell that turned you back into my minds eye father.

But i’m learning every fairy tale eventually reaches the page where the hero understands

the dragon is not trapped in the castle.

The dragon is the castle.

And no amount of love

can turn a wishing well

into a father.

Still dad’s

I need you to know

I loved you.