Arithmetic

No excuses for the distance,
only the arithmetic of a father
who learned to count in heartbeats
across state lines.
Se juega porque se juega.
We show up because showing up
is the only language that matters
when words fail in the space between.
This is not a consolation.
This is the spine of it.
Mi luna, Mia Luna,
estar lejos de ti es como no tener aire,
and yet the lungs keep working.
Muscle memory of love
does not require proximity to function.
Pero aún así persistimos.
Each second becomes a fist you clench around,
cada milisegundo a note you refuse to miss,
cada sonido—your laugh, the particular way
Catalina says my name, André's first cry,
Gino's silence still waiting in the future—
each one polished until it catches light,
until I can hold it without breaking.
El amor no entiende las millas y el silencio.
It understands only presence,
the way a father learns to be there
in the quality of attention,
in the refusal to mail it in from a distance,
in showing his children
that love is not a feeling that fades with distance
but a practice, a discipline,
a small daily resurrection.
A formula, some sort of arithmetic.
The kind where you die every morning to your own comfort
and wake up anyway with their names in your mouth
and their precious faces in your everything.
Solo mi presencia para con ustedes.
And in that presence, somehow,
I am surrounded by love.
Not despite the separation.
Because I chose to count every single beat.