#stepfather poems on Hello Poetry

Sarah Delaney Oct 2021

Silence

I remember twirling around in circles, bare feet on the gray concrete floor of the one car garage.
The space filling with the thick smoke from your cigar drifting about, filling both our lungs with the poisonous chemicals.
My five year old self wearing a loose fitted Barbie dress,
“Daddy, look at me! I’m a Princess!” I shout with laughter, posing dramatically.
“Not now, the adults are talking!” You said sternly.
I cower away from you and go back to my childish dancing,
Oh, how badly I wanted your validation,
Your love and attention.
But I was a mere child,
Not worthy of your time.
Perhaps, that was how I learned to be silent,
To be submissive.
How I lost my voice,
But did I ever have one to begin with?
You stole my voice before I even found it.

~sdr

#stepfather #abuse #trauma #gaslighting #attention #love #depression #fatherhood

Sarah Delaney Oct 2021

Dear Father

At one point I called you father, and meant it.
You were not my father by blood, simply by marriage.
I had longed for a father figure for as long as I could remember,
A man who would love and raise me as his own.
The good memories were brief snippets of happier times,
While the bad were vivid, distinct memories that lasted for what felt like hours.
A nightmare that I could never escape from,
They were engrained in my memory like the words to my favorite song.
I wish I could forget all the difficult memories and focus on the good times that we had together.
What little they were, anyways.
I wish I could forgive, the way my five year old self did,
Oh, the love and admiration she had for you.
Now all that was left was anger and a bitter resentment.
The anger and confusion that came with the abuse that you perpetuated.
I would never call you Father again, if I ever saw you
I would look at you in disgust and pity,
For you will never know true, selfless, love.
And for that, I feel sorry for you.

~sdr

#stepfather #abuse #trauma #brokenhome #brokenrelationships #relationships #father #fatherhood

Amelia Sep 2021

when it's convenient

it has been 8 years
since the union
since i've called you dad

so far, every year remains the same

i'll pass you a handdrawn card on father's day, a warm smile on my face
i'll write the words i love you over and over again for years

'you are the best,
  thank you for staying,
    thank you for not leaving
     thank you for taking care of us'

but the next day,
when the teacher asks us to write down a deep, sentimental reflection on our parents and our love for them

without hesitation,
i'll write about my mother
and then pass it up without a second thought

within the far depths of many sleepless nights,
i'll still cry,
whispering
i don't have a father

then i'll ask myself
how cruel i must be

how when its convenient,
you aren't a father, not to me.

#stepfather

J Dec 2020

I think

Maybe my mother and my stepdad were happy once.
but that was a time where they still thought it was freedom
to be out of a household
as I'm thinking now.
there was a time where they could look into each other's eyes
and think
This is who I want to spend the rest of my life with
I want to hate him.
I want to hate him when his hands are on her,
on me
on us.
I want to hate him when he tells us that he doesn't love us
when he says he doesn't love my mother
that he's going to take my sister and brother
his kids he says
and leave.
I want to hate him when he tells me that I'm not his.
He's not my dad.
He's not my other sister's dad either.
that my mother's a *****
that he'd rather **** his cousin than look at my mother again.
We're nothing to him
I want to hate her when she tells him to leave, too
when she keeps talking
spitting on him
telling him that he's worthless
that she's cheating twice as much as he is
when she tells us that it's our fault he's mad
our fault their marriage is failing.
our fault.
I want to hate her when she leaves us alone with him
and comes back to my strongest sister in tears
asking her why she's crying "like a little *****"
I want to hate her when she breaks down because he's now been gone
for six hours
and we don't know if he's coming back.
but I can't hate them for long, because maybe they're right.
it's probably our fault.
I know they were in love once.
when I was young, and his kids hadn't been born yet
and I was living with my grandfather and grandmother
with Lilly and Cherish
that was a time where he could be with her
alone
always.
they were in love with each other once
back when I wasn't cutting
or drinking or smoking
back when I wasn't thinking or talking
back when we were nothing but children
tiny children.
they were in love once, and now there's nothing.
somewhere when they started
falling apart,
they left little string
and as I grow older I find that I follow it
the string leads into why they're still together, but
see
the string will run out eventually.
"For the kids"
"We can try"
"we can make it work"
"I'm sorry"
"I love you"
those all get thinner.
See I think that they were in love at one time
but that was before they knew each other.

maybe he'll be back tomorrow

#father #stepfather #daddyissues #parents #fighting #falling #sorry #abuse

Paola Verduzco Mar 2019

Stepfather?

Every meal is hard to swallow
With you present at the table
My stomach rumbles
Yes, in pain
The swifty of my ways
I absolutely hate eating with you
Yearn to I do, retch
The unpleasant time
In which should be my fathers
My hero, NO MATTER WHAT
You take his place at the table
But never, will you EVER have a place in my heart
Ruined it you have for yourself
Many not once a time
including grandmother, has she despised you.

I’m sorry to say. But it is what it is.

#hate #anorexic #stepfather

Venn Oct 2018

Family

(tw; family dysfunction)

Who am I?

I like to think that, in every punch,
Every curse,
Every outburst of rage,
There is a little bit of my father.

In every burst of anxiety,
Every obsessive drive for perfection,
Every rejection of genuine emotion,
There is a little bit of my mother.

In every spiteful comment,
In every grudge held too long,
In every egotistical thought,
There is a little bit of my stepfather.

And even if we are not together,
Fated from the beginning to tear one another to pieces,
We are still one big ******* happy family.

#family #mother #father #stepfather #identity #self

Fritzi Melendez Mar 2018

Opportunity Cost

Why do I try with you?
I can never win.

It's like building up the biggest sandcastle so far away from the ocean,
Yet you bring a bucket full of water and pour it out until it's just mush.
It's like fixing up a heart that is barely beating almost to full recovery,
Yet you grab it once again and dig your nails into it until it withers.
It's like bringing my head up from the tides to breathe for air,
Yet you grab my head and push me back down into the water.
It's like being worn out from a long day walking drenched by my rain cloud,
Yet you barge into my safe home with words as loud and hurtful as thunder.
It's like quieting the sad blue baby to sleep after hours of constant crying,
Yet you wake it back up once again with your own terrifying screaming.

Only I am the one crying until I awaken with puffy red eyes.
...
It just feels unfair and frustrating,
to feel so high and crash back down in a matter of seconds.

It's always the times where I feel alive, where I feel like I can walk.
And then I feel your hands push me back onto the ground,
As I listen to you blame me for not standing strong enough.
How doing this will leave me permanently scraped on the knees.
How my weak knees will force me to become a failure.
...
Sometimes I wonder how life would be without you.
Would I be happy? Probably, but my mom wouldn't.
It's the lesser of the two.
The latter of who is most important.
It's either the one you fell in love first while the other was forced.
It's abandoning the one that has less to lose.
The potential gain you receive from the kisses my mom gives you.
and I am the opportunity cost of your relationship with her, it seems.
You chose this life, yet you act like you despise it.
It makes me fear growing up, if growing up means to become cold and erratic.
...
Everyone wonders why it all affects me so much.
Very rarely do I get a break from the endless vast that holds me in its arms.
But when its tired arms puts me down, I'm able to walk freely.
I can breathe again, I can feel again, I can smile again, I can be me again.
Until you command the vast to hold me much tighter than before.
And I drink in the vast and let it soak into my brain as it leaks out my eyes.
And I can't help but do what I'm conditioned to do: blame myself.
I'm just the loss from the gain.
the chaos from the calm.
the bad from the good.
the pain from the pleasure.
the black from the white.
the second from the first
and let me tell you...

2nd *****,
But you wouldn't care.

It gets so frustrating to be able to take a deep breath and enjoy the feeling of happiness, just to have me go back to feeling depressed once again in a matter of seconds because my mom's boyfriend thinks he has the right to throw me down all the time.

#anger #depression #second #opportunitycost #loss #gain #mom #boyfriend #stepfather #pointless