Man/Father/Monster
a poem I wrote because I'm convinced that the humanization of my father is going to kill me
I used to be my father’s little princess
The evidence captured in a mere photograph
Of me in a fluffy white dress
My birthday maybe
My father is holding me up to the sky
Like a precious jewel
I’m glowing with joy in the picture
And my father does not flinch at the glare
A certainty in how much love we had for each other
I don’t know when I stopped being
Daddy’s little girl
My father knows nothing about me these days
For I am not the little girl he expected me to be
And it is not someone I would recognize
I remember how small I look in that photograph
And I realize how small I am now
I try to make sense of how a man who
Looks as gentle as my father
Could ever ruin something so small and frail and
Defenseless
My father never protected me from the monster under my bed
Because the monster had his voice
And his eyes
And his hands
I don’t know if it was the monster or my father who taught me
That guilt and shame will always be my first emotions
While I tried to show them that anger should be their last
And as the years pass
And the photograph becomes a faded memory
I see my father become the vague idea of
The father I wanted him to be all this time
And I hold the same rage that he only reserved for me
In my stomach instead of my fists
And I forgive him against my will
Forgive him as my own personal punishment
My father taught me that there were many things that I should hate about myself
But the one thing I hate the most about myself is
how much I love my father
There is never an apology that comes for me
And my father’s growth is exponential
But I am still so small and exponentially
Shrinking
Instead of apologies
I am met with guilt and shame at the anger that I’ve
Failed to digest
Because at least he’s trying now
At least there is improvement
And I should be happy
Yet I struggle to swallow the
“Too little too late”
That sits like bile in the back of my throat
These days my father is not my father
But just a man
I forced myself to forget that he was once lurking at the foot of my bed
I’m finding it difficult to know the difference between
Man and Father and Monster
I want to tell him that I am still small
But I do not know who I am talking to
These days my father asks me one question about myself
He asks, “How much do you love me?”
Our memories together wrap tightly around my throat when he asks me this
And with the burning hatred I’ve reserved only for myself
A small voice that I don’t recognize whispers,
“Too much.”
~LLQJ