I am a house with no doors,
an echo that never learned how to fade.
Anxious. Depressed.
Sad feels too small a word
for something that lives in my bones.
Please save me, Dad-
but the word Dad feels borrowed,
like a coat that never fit.
Where were you
when I was learning how to spell your name
with questions instead of letters?
Why does your absence
feel louder than most people’s presence?
I wanted something simple-
a normal dad,
the kind that shows up in stories
and stays.
But you’re what I’ve got,
a ghost that visits
just long enough
to haunt.
And you say “lately” like pain has an expiration date-
but lately means always.
Lately means every birthday, every silence,
every time I looked at the door
and learned it wouldn’t open for me.
You’re not in my life-
that’s the easy version.
The one I hand out
when people ask.
Because the truth
is too heavy to carry in conversation.
I can’t say
you broke things that weren’t yours to break.
That you built another life
in another country
and left me out of it
like I was optional.
I can’t say
you arrive like a visitor
in a place you helped create,
as if I’m just a stop
on your way to somewhere better.
I can’t say
your hands taught me fear
before they ever taught me love.
That your words
cut deeper than silence ever could.
I can’t say
I waited alone at school
watching the sky dim,
wondering if I mattered enough
to be remembered.
I can’t say
you were always somewhere else-
lost in a screen,
in someone else,
in anything that wasn’t me.
So I hug you
like it’s survival,
like refusal might shatter something worse.
I wear love like a mask,
tight against my skin,
until I forget
what my real face feels like.
Because how do you love
a person who never calls?
Who never asks
if you made it through the day?
Who never says
the three words
that could have saved you
a thousand times?
I am still here,
waiting in the space
you never filled.
And the hardest part is-
I don’t just miss you.
I miss
who you were supposed to be.
Mar 19
Mar 19, 2026 at 11:06 AM UTC
I am a house with no doors,
an echo that never learned how to fade.
Anxious. Depressed.
Sad feels too small a word
for something that lives in my bones.
Please save me, Dad-
but the word Dad feels borrowed,
like a coat that never fit.
Where were you
when I was learning how to spell your name
with questions instead of letters?
Why does your absence
feel louder than most people’s presence?
I wanted something simple-
a normal dad,
the kind that shows up in stories
and stays.
But you’re what I’ve got,
a ghost that visits
just long enough
to haunt.
And you say “lately” like pain has an expiration date-
but lately means always.
Lately means every birthday, every silence,
every time I looked at the door
and learned it wouldn’t open for me.
You’re not in my life-
that’s the easy version.
The one I hand out
when people ask.
Because the truth
is too heavy to carry in conversation.
I can’t say
you broke things that weren’t yours to break.
That you built another life
in another country
and left me out of it
like I was optional.
I can’t say
you arrive like a visitor
in a place you helped create,
as if I’m just a stop
on your way to somewhere better.
I can’t say
your hands taught me fear
before they ever taught me love.
That your words
cut deeper than silence ever could.
I can’t say
I waited alone at school
watching the sky dim,
wondering if I mattered enough
to be remembered.
I can’t say
you were always somewhere else-
lost in a screen,
in someone else,
in anything that wasn’t me.
So I hug you
like it’s survival,
like refusal might shatter something worse.
I wear love like a mask,
tight against my skin,
until I forget
what my real face feels like.
Because how do you love
a person who never calls?
Who never asks
if you made it through the day?
Who never says
the three words
that could have saved you
a thousand times?
I am still here,
waiting in the space
you never filled.
And the hardest part is-
I don’t just miss you.
I miss
who you were supposed to be.