Dear Father

by TessaMQ

November 15, 2018

Dear father, do you remember the time I was six and I asked you if you loved me and you

looked me in my eyes which that were filled with so much hope and said, “No” and I didn’t know why

that hurt me the way it did.

Dear father, remember when I was in 8 years old and I had to lie to all my teachers and administrators at school

because I came back from winter break with a bandage wrapped around my little hand.

My teachers were worried but i just giggled and said I got hurt helping my big sister cook,

Because it was normal for children to get hurt.

We were clumsy.

I don’t know why I lied for you, maybe it was because I was a child searching for love and acceptance from her father.

I would always listen to my friends talk about the things they did with their fathers and I would get confused.

Dear father, remember when I was 11 and it was my birthday and as a present you told

me the story of how you begged my mother to get rid of the mistake she carried in her stomach

Because to you my brother was more than enough.

Dear father, remember when I was 13 and first hospitalized, you never came to visit me

Because it was a waste of gas to come and see your own child.

I could go on and recall years worth of pain and horror that could very well become the next Harry Potter series,

But that would be a waste, because you still wouldn’t get it.

I don’t want your apologizes, I just want you to know that you have accomplished

Whatever it is you set out to do when you broke that six year old.

I have become a corpse, a shell of a human being.

I no longer feel much of anything anymore, just numbing pain.

I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be happy and I don’t mean the small burst of happiness

That come too fast and leave too soon.

I wonder who broke you when you were a child, was it your father too.

Did he yell and spew curses at your mother and deny he every fathered your brother.

Did he make youfear the thought of growing up and being alone, because that is what you have done to me.

I fear that one day I will wake and become you.

Dear father, remember when I asked you what you would do if I did die, you said you’d

Go and collect my lifeinsurance.

Which I find funny because you weren’t even there when I was born.

No once again it was too inconvenient for you to come and see your child.

Dear father, maybe I came too early, maybe if I had come a few years later you would’ve loved

Me, but I came at a horrible time and it’s all my fault.

Everything was always my fault wasn’t it.

It was my fault that you'd drown your sorrows in bottles of fire that burned down your throat and

Gave you some sense of peace from the storm that would twist in your mind. I don’t like the you,

You become when the flames lick at your soul.

I’ve grown to fear the smell of smoke and the taste of ash.

My mother asked me if I feared dying.

Dear father, I do not because death means I no longer have to sit in my room alone and listen to

You curse my mother until she is stone, harden by your rough hands.

Dear father, death means no longer having to be subjected to a life so cruel that even after you’ve

Destroyed my self esteem and robbed me of my childhood, I still seek your acceptance, still wish

That you loved me as much as you hated me.

I know I have friends who love me but the darkness that has been growing inside of me since

Six years old whispers in my ear words that leave me

Distraught and gasping for breath that seems to evade me.

Dear father, I get panic attacks did you know that, did you know that sometimes breathing becomes

So difficult that I feel as if I’m drowning in a ocean of hate and anger, but I’m not angry.

I used to hate you and wish for your death to come soon.

Now I’m just tried and lonely, but unlike you I cannot turn my loneliness into anger,

It just coils around my throat and I choke on the bitter taste of your resentment.

Dear father, there once was a little girl who at the age of six wanted to be loved, now that little girl just

Wants to close her eyes and sleep.

I’ve become so weak and weary, that it seems no matter how long I sleep for my bones still quake with fatigue.

Dear father I hope you’re happy because, I’ve finally become

Who you’ve always wanted me to be, I have become you.

I have become broken and bitter.

The light burns father, it scorched my skin and leaves me a hollow husk.

And i stand there, allowing the pain to seep into my being until I am ash, blown away by the wind.

The pain has become comforting, because it’s the only way I know I am alive.

The cuts on my thighs give me solace, and remind me that I am still breathing,

That my hearts still pumps blood throughout my worn body.

Dear Father, I don’t know who I am anymore.

I’ve spent years creating the perfect person,

With the perfect laugh, perfect smile, perfect life, perfect friends.

But she is not me. I have lost all sense of who I am.

In all honesty I don’t think I ever knew to begin with.

If I find her, do you think I’d recognize her.

Dear Father, who am I. What have you done with that six year old girl.

Where did you take her.

Is she tied up in the basement, malnourished, pleading for a glass of water.

Where is she, please give her back to me.

I can’t stand the face in the mirror, because i know it’s not mine.

I don’t know who I am.

I don’t know who I am.

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