Father

Father

I grew up looking at you and never understanding the things you did.
I could not comprehend the repetitive patterns that perpetuated themselves in your life.
The endless flow and collage of different people.
They never stayed past a year,
But the outcome was always the same.
They left you and cut you out of their lives.
My friends I made, were always taken away in the process,
Never to be seen again.

You always cried victim.
You always had a very detailed story of what they did.
You loved to retell this story, to all the people who surrounded you.
The same people, who would have the same story, told about them, in time.
You were the victim, and you were centre stage.
 
As a child that aged into a teenager, I worshiped you, and you could do no wrong.
As a young adult, I started to see things differently, as my curiosity of the world grew.
As my need to understand it better, grew.
You had not changed; you still did the same things.
The same things, that didn’t make sense to me as a child.

I made a mistake, I didn’t mean too…
It changed everything in the worst way.
There is no way we could possibly go back,
Back to the way things always were.

I engaged you as an adult, as a human being, not just as a child who put their father on a peddle stool.
I questioned your lack of actions and support for me, your motives.
I questioned what made up the essence of your inner being.
I questioned what was it within you, that birthed your thoughts?

I did not get answers – not one.
There was no introspection.
There was no self-awareness.
There was however, pure rage!
It burnt the top layer of my skin and I winced in pain.

The man I loved and idolised,
Who I believed would always love and protect me,
He removed his mask.

Looking back, I think it actually slipped, and then fell off completely, as you decided to rip it from your face.
Everything I knew about the man called father, everything I knew about you,
It burnt to the ground in acid rain.
Every drop burning and dissolving my skin.

But what broke my heart,
Was when you reached inside of me,
When you said the cruellest thing to me;
“You are destroying my marriage!”