in dog years i'm dead: a collection of non-fiction short stories and poetry

daddy issues: a slam poem

this poem goes out to my dad and is the only entry in this book that will have him in it. The rest of this book is about my ex boyfriend and my heartbreak.

thanks for the trauma.

we used to go camping in tents and fish until the sun disappeared behind the mountains. we used to take pictures together, but once i got older and you grew colder, the love I thought we once actually might've possibly had shattered. because now it's only I hate you I hate you I hate you. come into my room crying I'm sorry I love you give me a hug I'll change I promise I'm trying it's hard. you began to crave the love I tried to give you that you never got, I overcame it, but you long for it. remember when you found out I was bisexual? you screamed at me and called me disgusting as if I wasn't your daughter anymore but I never felt like your daughter anyway. I cannot call a man who is never in my life my father. A man who does not even know my favorite color. A man who does not even know my age. you are a boy, not a man. you always think the worst of me and never talk about me positively and it's because I'm better than you will ever be. You see, I am not you, so I will never be like you. I will be who I want to be whether you care or not because you're never there to experience my phases and feelings anyways. and when I got caught doing something awful, you hit me with your shotgun and pushed me against the wall. 2 months later you threw the bracelet me and you had started a bond with at me and yelled 'happy birthday' the only happy thing about my birthday was that I got to go outside and breathe for once instead of being locked up in that house. That house that I will never call my home because the only home I have ever felt was wrapped in arms of those who meant it when they hugged me as I shattered into a million pieces telling them "I don't know how to live." The life that you regret you'd given to me because I am turning into the total opposite of who you had pictured me to be. so when i do not come home to visit you and only come home to visit mom, will you finally realize that you had 18 years to fix a toxic relationship with someone who's stomach turns inside out each time you come home from work. and I hope you know that I'd rather be dead than have one word conversations with someone who'd rather be on Facebook than hear what his kid has to say about what they did in school that day. I would rather re live  those haunting nights where you and mom would fight because you both worked so late and we had no money but you kept spending what we didn't have on things you never used. For 80% of elementary school my own sister raised me because you and mom were too busy screaming and crying and there are too many holes punched in that white garage wall to get out of my head. I will never be able to get your voice out of my head that night when you told mom to put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger. and when I accidentally cracked the screen on my very first iPod in 3rd grade, you cornered me in my room and screamed at me as I kept telling you I was taking full responsibility for what I had done. I was 11 when you and mom found out I was slicing my wrists each night and you left the room and let mom do the talking because you didn't care. you were too 'busy.' instead of caring you took away my ipod and said that I was to irresponsible to have it because I was cutting. my heart ached so much because I was never happy. But now I am happy because you have made me the young woman that I am today, you have broken me, torn me apart, shredded me into a million pieces, and eaten me alive, then let me put myself back together again. and I was always alone during all of this. We have tried to fix us so many times, but we can't because you won't change. But I am no longer afraid of your screams each time you hate who I am more than usual, I no longer cry because I longed for a father figure I could look up to. Instead, I laugh when you fight with any of us, I laugh at your selfishness and how much you wish to be pitied. I do not feel bad for a boy who used to be abused and was not able to build himself into a loving man who wants to spend every waking moment with his daughter because he never felt love as a child. I do not need you, I never did because you were never there. I love myself and I am as happy as ever. So thank you for the trauma.