I could thank you for raising me,
For making me who I was meant to be,
But you hated that task.
It showed in your actions, your face—I didn’t have to ask.
Yet you did make me who I am today.
I will never know trust or love in a fatherly way.
Abandoned by my own, scorned by you,
You held my mother’s hands steady as she stabbed me through.
You are the wound I was never meant to have.

Did I ask to be put on trial,
before my eyes held their first tears,
as my soul swirled in the depths of nothingness—
a mixture of stardust and ash?

Had I begged for a challenge?
Was I cocky and bold?
Or was it all a punishment,
paying for crimes of old—
a past time, another life?

Did I demand to do it twice?

In the beginning, I felt so undeserving.
Is that why now I find peace so unnerving?

I wish I could tell you,
and have you understand—
that you are you,
and I am me.

We put so many years between us,
and in all that time, you’ve changed nothing,
while I’ve had to change everything about me.

Just please understand—
I am a locust,
and you are a tree.

I lay dormant for years,
by your side, if only by circumstance.
I shed my skin again and again,
while you sat still—
unrelenting in your ways,
unmoving through the seasons,
resistant to the surrounding decay.

I pray you understand,
as I only have this to say—
you and I were born in the same forest,
and you expected me to stay?

Screaming,
Calling out to your ******* of a father
While staring out, far across the harbor,
Forgetting the name
Of the ship that carried him away.

The chill of the water below
Can't match the cold of a father unknown.

Tobacco smoke
Old leather and wood
Cannabis leaves and fir trees
Forest dirt and communion wine
Wearing the perfume
Of this past of mine

If you’d held me more,
Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up
Watching an overdose on the kitchen floor.
If your voice had been just a little softer,
Then maybe older men
Wouldn’t be what I sought after.
If your hands had been less cruel,
Maybe I wouldn’t have to work so hard
To avoid ending up like you.

I sit on the bench, bathed in the sun,
Listening to water, watching him run.
Tiny feet dance where mine used to play,
And I think of your gifts—
Candy at the end of the day.

Now I’m the one pushing gently,
Afraid of the swing’s height,
But his giggles assure me—
He trusts that with me, it’s all right.

I wonder what filled your heart as you watched me grow,
I can guess the answers, but I’ll never know.
They tell me I’m the best—but I knew the best.
No praise can soften the ache in my chest.

I try, I love, I give all I can,
But your shoes were never meant for another to stand.