a friend asks me
as i lean against the bar
gnawing on what is left
of my thumbnail
what my plans are for
father’s day

i laugh in the way
that is more than
a little painful
a short bark of mirth
and tell her that
i will be
saving money

i say this too quickly
ignoring the lump
that has formed in my throat
over years of missed birthdays
and happy memories ending
around the time i realized
that my father was
no longer my hero

it’s almost too easy
to joke about these things
i haven’t seen my father
in almost three years
i got both the ****** tattoos
he did when i was angsty
and suicidal and 17
covered with prettier pictures

i can laugh about it
saying i know my father hates me
because he doesn’t deserve
anymore of my tears
than i have already shed
over his lack of love

but it hurts
ya know?
it hurts like a scraped knee
when you’re too old for
a wound to be kissed better

and other metaphors
i use to cover the
fact that there is an ache
in my chest
a hole i am trying to fill

but i have nothing
to fill this hole with
because all i know of
having a father is what
i watched on tv
and read in books

and i am still trying to
figure out how i am
supposed to feel about this man
who i see whenever i look in the mirror
that didn’t want me as a daughter

and sure as hell
doesn’t want me
as a son
either

i want you as a lover
and isn’t that selfish of me?
here with all my unrequited love
i am still trying to choke down
like the ache of you
not being able to
love me back

and i don’t want nakedness
no skin on skin
aside from cupping the side of
your face in the palm
of my shaking hand

i want to feel your breath
remnants of coffee and cigarettes
a candle burned at both ends
watching the sun rise twice
in the same day

and i won’t try to hold your hand
run my fingers through your hair
kiss you with all the tenderness i have
or try to make you stay
but ******* i want to

my body was never a sacred thing
less of a small church out in
the middle of the desert
and more of a building
burned out from the inside
and ravaged by the
unforgiving sands of time

my body was this shell
that i was forced into
nobody asking if the label
that was slapped onto it
was the one that fit

and i broke my nails
on the walls
trying to claw my way out
never able to cut deep enough
to find what it was that
made me hate myself

spending years grasping
for breath
is hard to explain
but my skin bears
the scars of
trying to find the real me

my body was never
meant to be a temple
and i certainly didn’t
ever treat it like one
spending all my time
trying to get out
of what didn’t fit

i was not born into
a body that
felt like what
a home should
be

and it took me years
of building this body
from the ground up
rounding off the sharp edges
with careful touches
and so many apologies

this body of mine
was never meant to
be a church
or a burned out husk
waiting to be forgotten

my body is a worn
pair of boots
socks with holes in the heel
that i can’t bear to part with
a smile after the tears
crooked teeth and all

i built my body back up
into something that i
could live in
without wanting to
needing to
tear it apart

this has taken me years
and i am so tired
but more than that
i am finally
finally
finally
home

i take myself out to dinner
to a place i know i like
because i made sure to
write the name down

i’ll be 5 minutes early
maybe bring flowers if
the right kind is in bloom
just to see myself smile

and i’ll wear my nicest boots
a button-up with the
least amount of paint
and blood on it

clean-shaven, i’ll pull
out my own chair
order my favorite ******
light beer and even
splurge on dessert

i’ll make sure i know
that i am wanted
that i am worthy

that i am loved
loved
loved

i don’t know how to
make the pain of
my father’s abandonment
stop hurting

this is a wound
covered by a flimsy scab
prone to cracking
and seeping through the dressings

i have so many questions
and no answers
all this speculation
years of blaming myself for
his not knowing how to
not wanting to
be a father
be MY father

and i was just a kid
telling my classmates that
i didn’t even have a father
because he lived states away
while that void grew
bigger and darker inside me

and it has been nearly
three years since the last time
i saw my father
even though we live in the
same ******* town

but this is not the first time
that contact have been lost
it just never started again
since i stopped reaching out
and finally put myself first
where my father is involved

just because you’re someone’s
father doesn’t mean you’re a dad
and i can’t remember when i stopped
seeing his face when i thought
of having a dad
but it’s been too **** long

and it feels strange
to even call him my father
but that’s about as informal as
i can get without calling him
by his first name
ya know?

and maybe i’m just
searching for closure
an apology that will never come
that reassurance that i wasn’t a bad kid
the promise that it’s not my fault

and maybe if those things are
said with enough conviction
by the right person
at the right time
i’ll believe them

i just want this
to stop
hunched over at my desk
crying until my lungs hurt
wondering what i did wrong
i was just a kid

i was just a kid
and i needed a father
i needed a dad

but i won’t force him
to be my father
to be in my life
because he clearly doesn’t want to
doesn’t know how to

and all i want right now
is to find a way for
the wound that this prolonged
cycle of abandonment left
to stop bleeding through my shirts

i want to stop seeing his face
whenever i look in the mirror
i want to stop asking myself why
i want to stop blaming myself
because i was just a kid

i was just a kid

my friend tells me that
i look younger
and clarifies that it’s
like i’m more at ease
not so tense anymore

i almost say
“i love you”
because in that moment
my heart is so full of
love it could burst

but instead i make a
joke about my age
to hide that i am
so close to weeping
right then because of
how right they are

and i did weep
on that day
sitting on a friends bed
with my chest wrapped
in bandages and my
head in my hands

i wept since it
was finally over
so many years of
breaking my knuckles against
the cage of the gender
some doctor assigned
me at birth

and my friend was right
with what they said
i do feel younger
less like 21 going on 40
and more like
coming home

after being away
for just too long

being tattooed for the sixth time
by the same artist
and as a grouping of seven
to nine needles drives ink
into my skin again and again
my tattoo artist and i
talk about how
pain forces you to become
aware that you are present
in your body

i am not just a meat puppet
piloted from afar
i am the gray matter inside my skull
the blood in my veins
the scars on my arms
my body fits together so well

my fingers slot together
like they were meant to be
crooked on one side from
a heavy old car door
where you cried more than i did
because hurting other people
is such a terrible feeling

i still think our fingers
fit together better
mine clammy from fear
and yours warm because of
the fear you were shedding
with every step we took together

and all my parts
attached as they should be
like my hand on your face
yours in my hair
back to back on a mattress
better fit to one
but i never felt as warm as
i did with your body
pressed against mine

and my heart skipped beats
like your lips pulled me back
into my body
from where ever i had been

my breath and yours
mixing like they were always
meant to ya know

if i could somehow
climb inside the shield
that our love creates around us
everything interlocked
like it’s meant to be
then i would be
even more okay

and i am trying to
find a way to tell you
all this without my voice shaking
though that may take some time

which is all we have left
between us now