his voice crawled up my staircase and into my skin
“i miss you”
he said in his fatherly tone as if he had been off to war
two seconds ago he was in his room watching the news and then he decided to miss me
out of the blue
the first words that pop into my mind are
“you don’t have the right to”
but i’m not that bold
so i just respond with, “ok”
because what else was i supposed to say
we see each other everyday
he’s my father for ***** sake
he’s my father
no that doesn’t sound right
he’s the man that contributed to my birth
and if i wasn’t so **** afraid of him i’d call him that
if i talked to him at all
because being forced to call the source of my anxiety “daddy”
my sanity begins to shrink and
i feel small
because i was raised not to talk to strangers
but what about the ones that pretend to be family
the ones whose eyes hold the secrets of insanity
the ones who taught me how to hide my depression before i could color in the lines
but you think you have the right
to miss me?
after tearing my childhood apart with your bare hands
denying me the freedom to have a problem
making me a rebel for being human
setting unstable examples
letting love be redefined by how quiet we pretend to be
while our minds scream for an actual example of a family
but after throwing me in the cold
you start to miss me
when you realize i’m freezing
you blame me for being to cold
i told myself over and over
not to talk to strangers
especially the ones
who miss me