Unfortunately, I am my fatherâs daughter, not a daddyâs girl, and I will ruin you just as he ruined me.
It was the first lesson he taught me. Not in words, but in the way he left. In the silence that stretched across every room he wasnât in, every memory that frayed and unraveled with the touch of time. He showed me how to ruin people, how to break them without ever lifting a hand. You donât need fists to destroy something. All you need is to leave.
My first love was the night sky. That endless, indifferent everything was a mirror to my soul. I thought I could belong to it, be lost in the stars, be swallowed up whole. Iâm made of stardust and my motherâs tearsâwhat a fragile thing, a girl shaped by the cosmos and sorrow. I savoured the quiet, the stillness of night, when the only sound was the murmurs of my own thoughts. Even then, I couldnât stop wondering if I was meant for more than this.
You, however, were never in a position to think about what you want. Itâs your privilege, your flaw. In many ways, itâs an interruption of the will. Wanting things, desiring them, is an act of surrender. And youâre not the type to surrender. I always liked that about you.Â
Unfortunately, I was raised on a diet of resentment and cold shoulders, and Iâve learned to turn it into something else. Something sharper. Your heart is all I know. Itâs all I need to know. I can see it, beating in your chest, reckless, untamed, a constant reminder of everything Iâve never had. And I see youâI see the way you wear every emotion on your face, clear as day.Â
Everything is possible once you stop hiding from yourself. But the truth is, Iâve never really been able to do that. Every time I face whatâs inside me, I see his faceâmy fatherâs faceâand the wreckage he left behind. I thought I could love freely, but love, for me, is always tainted with the fear of losing. Itâs a hollow kind of love. A love that makes you take what you can while you still can, before it all slips through your fingers like sand.
All that Iâve done, I did it for love. But love, it never looks like what you think it will. Not when youâre used to loving with your teeth and claws, carving your own ravenous way through a world that only takes.
It is no small blessing that we are here today, standing in the light of this fragile moment. Humans are made to adapt, to survive. The strong survive, and the weakâwell, they fade. I wasnât made to feel joy or gladness, itâs not in my genes. I was made to feel the absence of it, and to keep moving forward anyway. To keep pretending like the void inside me isnât growing larger by the day.
And youâyouâyou are wonderfully untamed. Itâs a thing I envy. You donât care about the consequences, donât think about the cost. Youâre alive in a way that I havenât been in a long time, maybe ever. Itâs simple, and yet, not easy. And I know you already understand that. I know youâve tasted it.
One must feel weak before they choose to be strong, but humansâhumans are stupid and selfish by design. We mimic the ways of prey. We run. We hide. We think we have control, but we donât.
She doesnât look at me. She sees. Thereâs a difference. Sheâs not blind. Sheâs not ignorant. She knows exactly what sheâs doing. Why would I need input from you? What could you possibly tell me about who I am, when youâve never had to live through what Iâve lived through?Â
I tried to meet her gaze, but her eyes avoided mine, flicking down to the clay caked under her nails. Itâs always something like that, isnât it? When I try to make a connection, to feel somethingâanythingâthat could tie me to someone, to something, they simply slip away. Just like he did. Just like everyone else.
Back when I was easy to love, I thought maybe I could still be saved. Maybe if I gave enough, loved enough, maybe the world would finally give my lost youth back. But thatâs not how it works, is it? You are loved, even when youâre hard to love. Especially when youâre hard to love, and forgotten when you are easy. Shame grows in secrecy.
I can be part of the problem or part of the solution. Today, I felt like being part of the problem. Because solutions are just another way of pretending everythingâs okay. They arenât. Iâm not okay, and I donât know if Iâll ever be.
My mother crushed my hopes and dreams often, out of love. She would say it was for my own good, but I never believed her. Iâm just a girl whoâs angry at her father. That deadbeat fuck - he left us all. Three families, and six broken hearts. I see how you could leave me, but them? How can you abandon not one, but three? That feckless ass, I hope he steps on glass, but I know heâd just leave that blood on the floor, just like he left the rest of us.
My home was never more than a shaky shelter. It was a place that cannibalized me, chewed me up, and picked its teeth with my bones. I wanted to run away since I was old enough to understand what running meant. To get away from the suffocating warmth of the rooms where love was a weapon, not a comfort. Where words, wielded like weapons, were used to break you down. Where hugs felt like a bear trap.
I know Iâm stupid. I know Iâm selfish. I know thatâs what they say about people like me. But we were designed this way, werenât we? We were designed to want, to take, to consume. And anyone who says otherwiseâwell, they have an agenda. Some things arenât Godâs fault. Some things are just human wrongs now baked into our dna.
If you spend your life hiding, in the end, you wonât have the strength to stand. So I opened all the doors and windows. I let the wind rush in. I let you in. You should feel lucky. I never open myself up to anyone. But for you, I made an exception.
You are worthy of love. And Iâm sorry this has happened to you. You foolishly created expectations of an uncaring universe, and I respect you enough to tell you the truth: There is no reason. There is no purpose. Thereâs just this. This moment. This brokenness. And it is all I know.
