Stranger

Father I don’t really know you But I know your kind And I am at a point in my life Where I feel it is time to say That I forgive you And to forgive you does not mean That all of a sudden I will begin to call you daddy And live out all those little girl dreams Where even when you fell short You were the only recognizable hero Within my tainted focus Hiding the person that you really are Changing the woman I would grow up to become Because you stopped holding my hand Along my life’s path Before I even got really far Accepting the title of a duty You’ve barely fulfilled And because you’ve missed the journey Between then and now All you can see is that hopeful little girl still Stuck with the burden of deciphering Between what you say and what’s real And the reality of the situation is that This is fairly simple But simplicity in its simplest form Is hardly simple at all So it can’t be hard to believe How you’ve damaged me By simply being you And as I’ve grown I’ve come to realize That the too good to be true Is actually the too true to be good So I’m forgiving you because I want to move on with my life Not because I should So father, I mean stranger How is it that you can take shelter in the shadows of my successes Boasting about how your little girl has gone so far When your eyes are shut so tight You don’t even realize that this young woman Has memory tissue that’s scarred Visions of your neglect And promises of "one days" and "some day soons" Branded into my psyche Which is obvious to everyone But the one who started it all Is taking responsibility for your actions Or the lack thereof Really that hard Now I don’t want to be the one To hold onto lifelong grudges Because it is apparent to me that you are still living your life And I must now join you By doing the same And if you are going to claim me as your child You must first get to know me Because to know me is to love me And to love me is to understand That once you take part in the birth of a child Being a father becomes a part of being a man