How could a father do this to his little girl?
Disappear like the wind
no goodbye, just the ghost of a door slam
and the echo of footsteps fading away.
Silence doesn’t just sit, it screams,
a high-pitched hum in my ears,
a weight on my chest that refuses to lift.
Your promises were empty bottles,
scattered on the floor of my childhood,
glass glinting like shards of the lies you left behind.
I stare into the mirror,
its cracked surface spitting your reflection at me.
Your eyes; sharp, cold.
Your smile; a weapon.
I claw at my skin,
scrub until it’s raw,
but I can’t wash you off.
I dyed my hair until my scalp burned,
swaddled myself in fabrics you wouldn’t recognize.
But it’s no use.
Your absence clings to me like smoke
invisible, suffocating,
leaving me gasping for air that never tastes clean.
Your voice is a blade,
each word slicing open wounds that never heal.
And still, I let you back in,
every. single. time.
Because how do you stop hoping for warmth
from the man who left you in the cold?
Behind every “it’s fine”
is a girl screaming into her pillow,
tears soaking the fabric,
her chest aching with the question she whispers:
“What did I do wrong?”
I’m stuck
between the girl who just wanted her daddy,
and the woman who knows you’ll never be him.
Will I ever stop searching for you?
Maybe.
But for now, I stand
broken,
breathing,
alive.