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I was... I am a loving father. And today, like every day, I miss my daughter terribly. Dreams haunt me. They tear through sleep and follow me into waking, flooding every thought, every heartbeat, from the moment my eyes open. Sometimes I feel I can’t go on. Sometimes I can’t bear the sound of my own mind, screaming the same injustices again and again, to no avail. Take a man’s daughter, and you may as well finish him with a bullet. Because the head left behind will do the rest. It will torment him, grind him down, and break him into a shadow of who he once was. “Stand strong. Carry on.” That’s all that’s left. That’s all I’ve done. On the outside I am strong and unwavering, but inside there is nothing left. No reason. No peace. Only the instinct to survive what no father should ever have to endure.
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Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 1:47 AM UTC
Instincts (2018)
I was... I am a loving father. And today, like every day, I miss my daughter terribly. Dreams haunt me. They tear through sleep and follow me into waking, flooding every thought, every heartbeat, from the moment my eyes open. Sometimes I feel I can’t go on. Sometimes I can’t bear the sound of my own mind, screaming the same injustices again and again, to no avail. Take a man’s daughter, and you may as well finish him with a bullet. Because the head left behind will do the rest. It will torment him, grind him down, and break him into a shadow of who he once was. “Stand strong. Carry on.” That’s all that’s left. That’s all I’ve done. On the outside I am strong and unwavering, but inside there is nothing left. No reason. No peace. Only the instinct to survive what no father should ever have to endure.
This is something I wrote many years ago in 2018 but never published. My life has changed a great deal since then. I spent years fighting to be reunited with my child, so these words no longer reflect my present life, yet revisiting the pain I felt then has deeply affected how I see things now.
Fatefulfather
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Jul 4, 2018
Jul 4, 2018 at 1:47 AM UTC
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