Letters to my dad - the first part

Letters to my dad - the first part

If I wrote a letter to my dad, it'd would go something like this.

Hello! Hey Dad? See the words upon my pale skin and tell me you see them too. 

Do not pretend to me in your own self belief that you already knew, 

how my thoughts would always grow. 

See the blood clot between the words and not just think of my skin as yours. 

Do not ignore the violence in the stories upon my tender skin and then claim my scars never a war. 

See Dad I know I have your eyes, ears and nose, 

my face is mine, my face is practically yours, 

but so is the pain, 

that knows just how much make up I'd have to live with knowing you'd never be able to come home. 

If I choose to still call it that.

To live with the truth, the thought that you'll forever to be gone. 

To live a life longer than I have so far knowing that part of me will forever be alone. 

Dad I want you to know that I didn't choose a what if, 

it was given to me, by you.

And that, the longing didn't hurt, 

it was the thoughts of you creeping into my mind like thieves at night that did. 

And always I'd sing songs a river hoping that one day I'd wash away old memories of you. 

Those that I never had, 

those that only you knew. 

If only you knew how so much of my life has been a trailer, 

were the end scene would be of a father holding his daughters hand, 

were everything known now was never true. 

Where my late night tears didn't hold my truth. 

Of a pain, a hurt, a what if, 

on what others overdosed on. 

In the calm each night before I cry my 5o sleep, 

I'd hear my heart beat differently, 

like a part of me had a severed connection.

Like I was not good enough to be part of the place that you call home. 

I'm sure your new family feels like something I'd never give, 

I'd feel strings underneath my skin,

play musical notes to the what ifs in my own reflection. 

I want you to know, 

that I'm grown up now. 

And I didn't hold a grudge long enough to see those that hurt me smile. 

And I'd learned to survive, 

my first life lessons by you, 

every muscle that yearned for you built up for me a skin tough enough to withstand your lies dad. 

Tough enough to hold the air around my severed heart,

so that the hurt that lives there dies, 

maybe to suffocate the shadows of you out of my life. 

I don't know if what I am is you. 

I don't know if the explosives you'd planted here had taken you with me, 

or was I the only one nursing my wounds.

I don't know if you'd thought of me a cancer, 

didn't want to see me grow. 

I don't know if all the times I'd hurt you'd wake up in the middle of the night to know your baby missed a part of her home. 

Dad If I met you today, 

I'd tell you, with tears in my eyes, 

that I was not happy to see you, from now on I will not slit my wrists with I miss you's each night.

Dad you're the reason for all the pain in my life.

Sometimes I find joy in knowing that I never really knew you,

and that I do know.

26/07/19✔️