'Will you be my daddy?'
the girl in the woman whispered
to yet another lover, acquaintance,
man in the street who looked remotely
like he might just step in the phantom's shoes

...and the ache burned on
the searing, tearing
rags aflame
screamed
hot

and cold
as dry ice,
as unsuitable
whiskered men
became barnacled

to a little child's longing
to have a better papa than
the one that arrived to bash
all decency out of the fibre of

a life torn

Maybe my mother and my stepdad were happy once.
but that was a time where they still thought it was freedom
to be out of a household
as I'm thinking now.
there was a time where they could look into each other's eyes
and think
This is who I want to spend the rest of my life with
I want to hate him.
I want to hate him when his hands are on her,
on me
on us.
I want to hate him when he tells us that he doesn't love us
when he says he doesn't love my mother
that he's going to take my sister and brother
his kids he says
and leave.
I want to hate him when he tells me that I'm not his.
He's not my dad.
He's not my other sister's dad either.
that my mother's a *****
that he'd rather **** his cousin than look at my mother again.
We're nothing to him
I want to hate her when she tells him to leave, too
when she keeps talking
spitting on him
telling him that he's worthless
that she's cheating twice as much as he is
when she tells us that it's our fault he's mad
our fault their marriage is failing.
our fault.
I want to hate her when she leaves us alone with him
and comes back to my strongest sister in tears
asking her why she's crying "like a little *****"
I want to hate her when she breaks down because he's now been gone
for six hours
and we don't know if he's coming back.
but I can't hate them for long, because maybe they're right.
it's probably our fault.
I know they were in love once.
when I was young, and his kids hadn't been born yet
and I was living with my grandfather and grandmother
with Lilly and Cherish
that was a time where he could be with her
alone
always.
they were in love with each other once
back when I wasn't cutting
or drinking or smoking
back when I wasn't thinking or talking
back when we were nothing but children
tiny children.
they were in love once, and now there's nothing.
somewhere when they started
falling apart,
they left little string
and as I grow older I find that I follow it
the string leads into why they're still together, but
see
the string will run out eventually.
"For the kids"
"We can try"
"we can make it work"
"I'm sorry"
"I love you"
those all get thinner.
See I think that they were in love at one time
but that was before they knew each other.