I’m seventeen now.
It’s been six years
since the last time I heard
my father’s voice in the house.
He didn’t die because of the pills.
Or the alcohol.
Or the nights
when he seemed to destroy himself.
He died while working.
The sea took him away
while he was trying to make a living,
and ever since then,
I hate the sound of water.
Sometimes I try to remember
what he was like before all of it.
Before the yelling.
Before the broken doors.
Before the man who taught me how to ride a bike
stopped feeling like my father.
And it hurts to admit
that I miss him.
Because even though he made me cry
more times than I could count,
he was also the one who tucked me in during nightmares
and called me “little one”
like the world could never break me.
I was eleven
when I saw his coffin.
And I remember thinking something horrible:
“Now he can never yell at me again.”
After that,
I felt guilty for years.
I guess that’s how grief works.
It makes you miss even the person
who broke your heart first.