I hear your voice and the car crash erupts in my mind

every dirty little secret I once held like family jewels
tears away in an attempt to free me from you.

Your backhanded words cut me like the knife you ran through
my neck

and with every breath I take I feel your life slip away
while I watch

cursing the day I decided to let you down

and realizing it was never a decision; you were the only way
out

at times I feel a little too in control and I look around
waiting to see your puppet strings taking hold

I fought every day to forget the father that never was and I
prayed when I believed that god would take your curse from me

I counted the in and slowly released the out trying to
remember that air was just another thing I could not forego  

like the guilt you instilled if I ever cared about me

or the guilt you gave that leads me to feel shame

like the divorce I had, and you were disappointed in me

I should have realized by then this girl would not be anyone
you would ever see

or meet eye to eye

I would always be your pawn in your deceptions and lies

in me you hoped your legacy would carry on

my flight, my assertion that I would never be like you

led you to tell me just what the army would do to a girl
like me,

barley fit to breathe

you took bets and ran the pool asking all when I would cave

you wrote a CO telling him I was you

that my drug and alcohol addictions led me to be someone he
should not bother to groom

I would fail and flake out

but what you couldn’t see

was that your very words often times are what fueled me

to a greater existence

to finding me without you

you see I am not your black sheep daughter

I am simply the one who outgrew

your manipulations and torment

I found a life alone

I didn’t say it was easy but in you there was no home

no sanctuary

no solace

just reminders of all the reasons I failed at being the
daughter of a psychopath

I guess it shouldn’t bother me

but I know most days it does

your guilt worked well

that now some days

I feel stuck

feel stuck in the guilt

feel stuck in the shame

feel stuck in the knowing

I was never the one to blame

feel stuck in the solitude

of being tossed away

feel stuck in the knowledge

that your still alive today

I will never be a product of a loving or stable home

my stories tell all too well

from just where I have come

but I’ll strive to know what that may be like

for my children

I know you don’t care

its been that way all my life

but I know my boys

wont have to know my strife

of

being your orphan,

that was never my plan,

so I guess now we’re even

Goodbye dad.

UKVos

3/7/2013