As a kid,
I would stare at my fathers hands,
Long fingers and harry knuckles,
Folding and extending like a dance across his keyboard,
Always moving and seeming never too slow.
I would not be allowed to watch for too long though,
Complaining that he needed to get work done,
He would send me away,
And I would climb the stairwell back upstairs to reality.
I never minded being sent away though,
Because I feared if I watched for too long,
The rhythm of his fingers would loose their magic.

As I grew older,
My father spent more and more of his time in his office in the basement.
The occasional times I would go down,
With the intention of escaping the world for a while,
I would find the door locked.
I would sit outside the room trying to listen to the sound of the keys,
But it was different not being able to physically see his hands.
Eventually I stopped visiting him all together.
After being sent away for so many years,
I lost the interest to keep trying.
He continued to work and use his keyboard,
But the rhythm of his fingers lost their magic.

And now that I am much older,
I look back at our relationship with regret.
Maybe if I had kept visiting him down stairs,
Maybe he would have realized how magical I saw him to be,
But I did try,
I tried for the majority of my child hood to get him to notice me.
Now I worry that there isn't the time to get his attention,
To show him my own magic tricks,
For him to reveal his secrets to me,
And me finally find a reason for his actions.
Is that bridge too burned to cross?
Is the magic all lost?