Baba,
I know you better now.
After a long, ferocious time—almost thirty years,
I couldn’t write you a poem that expresses my mixed feelings toward you.
Despite this inconsistency between knowing you and being unable to write to you, we are not arguing or fighting anymore.
My cumulative hatred toward you is calming down.
I forgot about all the wounds that you had drawn on my borderline personality disorder portrait and the demonic words that you used to say to me every morning and night.
I got rid of all the ruins that you had spent time injecting into my pores.
No more writing dark letters and lifting them with balloons to the world to show it how evil you were or spending three hours creating black-and-white videos about family abuse and not posting them anywhere.
I’m a grown woman today; I’m thirty years old, I guess. Keep this in mind.
Baba, in spite of these unfair feelings, I love you to the point of tears.

Your daughter
Nicole.

Short, yet but lovely,
she stood at the height of my chin.
And for her I would
cast my soul into hell and into sin
over and over and over again.

Melanie isn't real,
but her idea is.
and I hate the girl
but her essence
makes me grin.

In doubt and in faith
she persists,
someone to talk to,
someone to miss.
When I'm drunk.

When I'm alone.

When she swims
through the depths
of my skin,
to my bones.