TW: DV

When I was younger I used to try to decipher why my father made me feel like such an outsider, he was his happiest with me as an outlier separated by a barbed wire divider. He'd always say that I'm just a good liar, I say "no, I'm not"  I am my father's least favorite daughter.

It was never a question if his blood flowed through my veins, he knew I was his, but still his disdain for me remained. He struggled to even find the desire to pick out my name. my mother says "during that time he felt a lot of shame and it was easier for him to hand you all the blame" but what baby has the strength to carry a man's shame with their ten tiny fingers and small frame? I wasn't even born yet and I was already losing at his game.

I mourn for the life I could've lived one where I viewed the man who gave me life, as a gift. I mourn for the way I as a child had a perpetually clenched fist. I mourn for the way he forced us to take his teachings like he was a revered pastor, shouting from a pulpit...
I mourn for the little boy he once was and how he couldn't help but tap on things and fidget, and how at nine he didn't know how to tell the teacher in English "I need my lunch ticket."

He couldn't stand how I began to defy and resist, a fire inside me he spent my whole life trying to keep from being lit. He didn't understand how at fourteen I already knew he'd never be a loving enough father for me to want to submit, the way a daughter should want to in a family that's tight knit.

He'd call me stupid and a coward but I realize now it's because he saw the strength and power that cascaded out of me like a gardenia tree blooming with flowers. The dominion he claimed over my life, it wasn't mine- it was "ours"- was immeasurable, reminding me I wasn't free, over and over again for hours.

He treated me like a creature that felt no pain
one that wasn't able to think for herself and didn't have a brain
he viewed me as an enemy that he needed to slay
I used to pray that maybe i'd live long enough to one day make my escape

Fifteen years old with three days worth of clothes shoved into a bag in the middle of a night in August, I fled
From all the horrors of this house and my childhood bed
From all the nights and mornings I was left unfed
From all the times he'd overpower me rather than being my father instead

There was a time when I saw him again
I was having breakfast as vile words were spoken to my mother so "don't talk to her like that" was said
he told me I wasn't brave enough to stand up and before a second thought could pass through my head
I rose to my feet to cross swords with my father, i don't even remember what I was eating, but I think it was toasted bread
I fearlessly looked into the eyes of this man and remembered how many times I had bled
and how even though that blood was scarlet, this time I was seeing bright red
"i'll just call the officials." startled he said
and he trembled as he pulled out his phone, like he had seen someone come back from the dead.

Years have passed and tears have fallen
and floated along in the wind with all the seeds and all the pollen
and planted were those seeds and with my tears were they watered
and I see now that my favorite person will always be
my father's least favorite daughter

I used to be afraid that you would leave                                                            ­                                               but  now it is a sense of relief                                                           ­                I  spent so much of my energy                                                           ­    trying  to be what you wanted me to be                                                   I  found out after you'd gone                                                             ­            you weren't  anyone I could count on                                                               ­    If  nothing else it made me strong                                                           ­ because  I always had been doing it alone                                                   I  realize that my true happiness                                                        ­         is  up to me and not anyone else                                                             ­            who  I am and who I want to be                                                               comes  from the power that's inside of me

I can’t explain it
not to anyone,
not to myself,
not even to my soul
how it aches
to survive the loss
of a love that once lived inside me.

I can’t explain this.
no one ever warned me
about a pain
that folds your body inwards,
like grief blooming beneath the skin
as if you’re bleeding
from the inside out.

and no matter how hard you try,
no matter how fierce the war inside your mind,
it’s inevitable.
it hurts in ways
no one will ever understand
because even I don’t understand it.

it’s disturbing.
the fear that it might never stop
and worse
that love might never come again.
a silent cycle,
spinning endlessly.
unfightable.

i’m trying.
i’m trying so desperately.

reality feels like a lost cause.
it clings to everything
to the air,
to the light,
to the shadows where it used to be.

no one can make it stop.
sometimes I wish
I had never met this,
because it’s tearing me apart.
and i still don’t know why.

he used to love what i wrote.
but almost all of it
was pain disguised as love
too strong,
too much,
never meant to last.

the embarrassment
I tried so hard.
and i’m so,
so sorry.