If It Turns Out You're Not Mine

If it turns out you’re not mine

I’ll try not to think of you

As ‘not mine’

It’ll be hard

But I’ll try

Because it won’t be your fault

It won’t affect the love

It really won’t
Because I’ve loved you all this time

So not loving you now

Would be like

Trying not to breathe

Or yawn

Or scratch my head

The love I have for you

Is integral to who I am

It’s what’s natural

It’s what I live with

Every day

I wouldn’t know how to—

I wouldn’t want to stop

Living with it

I always knew you didn’t look like me

Hard not to see it

Although people thought

I couldn’t

They thought I was stupid

Because I loved you so much

And yeah, love can make you stupid

But it won’t make you blind

Unless you want it to

Truth be told, you look like your grandmother

My mother, I mean

And I liked that even better

Than you looking like me

So I never really

Had a problem with it

It wasn’t until you got older

And you…

Well a person wants to know

Where they come from
--I get that

And I don’t blame you

For wanting to know

What makes you up

But I heard you talking

To your sister

About how I was going to feel about it

And I just wanted you to know

I don’t feel any kind of way about it at all

Not at all

It’s just that there’s something

To a person’s biology

That when they create—

Or they think they’ve created—

A, uh, another person

There’s something to that

And I’m a straight-shooter here

So I won’t lie to you

And say there’s not

But that’s just about

Ownership
Territory
Planting a flag

Or the feeling like

Like--
Like you’ve—

Well, it doesn’t matter

I don’t really own you

Nobody does

It’s just something left over

From when I was a kid

And my dad thought we were

His personal property

I don’t want to think like that

And you shouldn’t either

When you have kids

Although I should tell you...

If it turns out you’re not mine

I’m going to know

When it was that your mother, uh…

I remember a night
This one night

Her coming to bed

After having been out

With some friends of hers

I remember putting my arm around her

And her crying

And me not knowing why

I'm not saying this
So you'll be mad at her

Sometimes people mess up
And it’s like a kitchen spill

It just goes on and on

And touches everything it can

Before you get a chance to clean it up

And sometimes a mistake

Is like a rock
With a diamond inside it

You think it’s something

That’s going to break apart

Your whole life and then—Pow!

This thing of beauty

This thing that—that—

That changes your life

For the better

That's what you are

I got you as a daughter

All these years

And I’m going to have you as a daughter

Until the day I die

Mine or not mine

It doesn’t matter to me

And just so long
As you keep calling me Dad

Truth is--

I don’t care if you’re mine

Just as long as I’m your’s

That’s all

I’ll ever want to be