you hurt me
you selfish
fucking
bastard
i was just a kid
a young boy wondering
where his father was
telling the other kids in
my kindergarten
first
second
and third grade classes
that i didn’t have a father
and that never felt like a lie
seeing as you never had
the time for parenting
media and fiction told me
what a father should be
and you never did live
up to that
the image i had in my head
of what it meant
for a father to be loving
and
and
and
i am drunk
i am drunk
and angry
and hurting
but never enough to
pick up the phone
not that you would ever call
and not that i would ever answer
and i am still licking
the wounds that an absent
childhood left behind
wondering when this
void will close
waiting for a scab to form
that is no longer so damn flimsy
and my tattoo artist tells me
that his father was like mine
but also worse
and when his father died
everything he felt for him
died, too
and
and
and
i wonder if that will
happen to me, too
will all the memories
the hurt outweighing the good
finally burn out?
will i stop longing for
something i never had?
will the fact that
you never wanted me
as a daughter
or as a son
stop aching
so damn much?
will you have to die
for me to no
longer
be afraid?