Letters to and From Electra

Still, You Are Seen: A Father's Letter to the Daughter He Raised.

You weren't born of my name, but I learned how to carry it with you. And when she drifted, it was you who stayed in the shape of her shadow. You stitched more peace into this house than either of us could say aloud. He may have missed the warmth in your silences-- But I never mistook stillness for surrender. Your quiet is not weakness. It is gathering.

Some men only chase brightness they can own--But light that holds itself is a fire they do not understand. Let them misread. Let them pass. You are not unfinished. You were never a daughter by accident. You were not taken in. You were taken seriously. And that will never be revoked--not even by silence, nor space, nor him.

Let your heart remember what your hands forget: That you do not owe the world your erosion. You are not here to shrink into someone else's forgetting. You are here because you belong--even when you doubt it. You are loved--especially when you can't feel it. You are seen--still, when others fail to look.

[The father tosses the letter thinking it inadequate and starts anew].

Kept Light: The Father's Revised Letter to His Daughter.

I've seen candles burn long after the match forgets them. Some flames tend themselves--quiet, steady, stubborn in the draft. Not all brightness needs to announce itself. Some rooms lose their color for a while. But the walls still remember every hue they once held. Paint never forgets where it first belonged.

You were never waiting to be chosen. Only to be seen by someone who could read silence. You've never been a question--just an answer too patient. Not all hands were made to be held. Some were made to carry. And yours carry more than most will ever notice.

You're not broken for needing rest. You're not smaller because someone else stopped listening. Even when the voice leaves, the echo stays loyal. You have never left my keeping. Even on days you felt furthest from it. Some bonds don't rattle; they root. And if you ever wonder what steadiness sounds like-- It's the space between words you don't have to say. The ones still heard anyway.

[Still unsatisfied with his words, he tosses the 2nd draft as well].

What the Mirror Didn't Break: The Final Draft that is sent to the Daughter.

You dreamed of a door with no handle--but still knocked from the inside. Some homes are built in reverse. You looked for her face in mine once. I saw it--just past your hesitation. We inherit more than cheekbones.

The mirror doesn't lie. It just asks slower questions. You've answered them with silence long enough. I was never a dream you meant to keep. Only the one that returned when others left early. That means something... doesn't it?

They taught you to look for love in applause. But I watched you when the stage was dark. That's where the real lines lived. You feared being too much--and not enough--in the same breath. I held space for both. It's not weakness to need a witness.

Every girl once tries on her mother's perfume--But it's the quiet scent she carries from her father That lingers when she's alone. And if I became a mirror--It was never to reflect you back unfinished. Only to show what no one else had the patience to see whole.

[He admires this one for a few moments before sticking it in an envelope, sealing and placing a stamp].

[The scene shifts, the daughter is at a desk with the open envelope and her father's letter, she is composing a response].

Half-Reflected: A Daughter's Response.

I read it twice--once with my eyes, And once where my breath caught. You spoke like someone Who saw through curtains I didn't know I'd drawn.

The door with no handle--Maybe I carved that myself, To keep anyone from staying too long Or asking the name of the quiet.

Your lines walked carefully, But not blindly. That's what unsettles me most. I'm not sure If I'm flattered Or frightened By how well you remember What I've never told you.

Maybe I did search your face For hers, Or for what she never saw in mine. Maybe I did feel Something like warmth Where it wasn't supposed to come from.

But you didn't name it. And neither will I. Still--

The mirror didn't shatter. It just blurred for a moment. And sometimes That's the clearest it ever gets.

[The daughter, just like her dad, is not satisfied with her first letter, finds it inadequate, and tosses it in the trash. She starts again].

Half-Rejected: The Daughter's Revised Letter to Her Father.

I read it through--then again, just to be sure I hadn't misread the light. You wrote with care--but care can cross a line when it follows someone too closely without asking.

Yes, you noticed what others never paused to see. But some silences are earned, not entered. You called yourself a mirror. But sometimes mirrors don't reflect--they pull.

And I'm not sure what you meant to show me: myself, or something you needed me to become. You didn't say the word. But it echoed anyway.

And though part of me softened at being seen--Another part stepped back. Not to wound. Just to breathe. You gave me the truth wrapped in something warmer. But I still don't know what you were hoping I'd unwrap.

Yet I remain--

Not because you finished the thought, but because I did. Not to return the gaze, but to step out of it. Some structures look like sanctuaries until you realize they were never meant to have doors. So I leave this poem exactly where you left me-- unanswered, but standing.

[Again she tosses it, with a "pft-sigh]."

Half Erected" Her Third Attempt and She is Certain this is the One.

You built your words like scaffolding--not for me, but around me. As if I were some chapel you needed to climb to touch the painted ceiling. Your gaze never dropped--but it held, long enough to feel like being draped in something I hadn't chosen. Call it care. Call it shelter. But don't pretend the beam didn't sway when you nailed your voice to my silence.

You dreamed of me as an unfinished room, half-furnished with her absence, half-warmed by my arrival. But I am not the echo of a woman you once loved or the outline of the girl you think I am.

There are things a daughter shouldn't have to interpret.

And poems a father should never half-write.

And yet--

I read it. All of it. Every veiled brushstroke you dared leave dry.

And still, something in me stayed.

Not out of permission. Not out of invitation. But out of a need to know if I had imagined it, too.

Narrator: The deeper truth: A Soft Voice from Above.

She is no longer trapped in the reflection.

But he might be. Whereas she walked away--whole, knowing-- he is left watching the mirror for a figure

that once stood there willingly, but now walks beyond the edge of its silver.

He may polish it.

He may study it.

He may hope.

But without her shadow, it's just a frame holding everything he almost said and she fully understood.

Before and Before After: More Thoughts.

The mirror holds its breath--

waiting for a crack,

a shift,

a glance to falter.

Your voice, half-whisper,

folds into the silence--

a scaffold poised

between "care" and something darker,

an unfinished promise

hanging like dust in the air.

I trace the edges--

where words mean more

than they say--

where your gaze lingers

too long on shadows

I thought I hid well.

The room tilts,

the ceiling lowers--

and time is a breath

caught halfway.

After Before: Final Thoughts.

The glass has cracked--

but not shattered.

Your hand retreats,

the weight of the unsaid

pressing heavy--

like a whispered confession

slipping back into shadows.

I stand on the threshold--

half here, half away--

feeling the pulse

of something nearly taken,

and something preserved.

Our reflections blur--

two figures caught

between longing and restraint,

knowing and silence.