The days grew me up like a gnarled tree

I found twists and bends in solitary

When you, my daddy, could not love me

I would find myself in too dark places

Pleasing your substitutes, seeking absolution

For what wrongs I did not know

When hands and voice raised

I believed this was a womans lot in life

To eat the hatred and call it love quietly

Lest we be banished to poverty and alone

You instilled ethics, hope, and dreams

But as I became less controllable

You pulled apart my still tiny heart strings

And unraveled my fragile trust

The hands that cleaned my cuts

As I learned to ride my first bike

The same pair you used to strike

Fearful obedience as I, confused and wide eyed

Out of love would have listened better

When I talked you heard my mother

The worthless bitch whore

Until my little voice grew seamlessly silent

And you heard me no more

She was long gone and I was the last piece of her

You could tear down, rip apart, hold to blame

Though I am nothing like her to anyone but you

Married to broken dreams, I sought

To stand on my own feet to finally

Seeking out an oasis from a slow hell

To at least know I had choices, options

You told me to be smart, to be educated

That I could do anything and you would help me

I could be everything I dreamed of

But when it came down to college

You thought only boys were worth educating

Desperately poor I lived under iron fists

Just to keep a roof over my head

But you could have helped me be free

To have other options, to be able to be an adult

To finally not be under any mans control

So, daddy if you look at me now

After all these years have passed

As a failure for quietly suffering

A half life of bruises and tears

Know my strength and weaknesses

Grew in younger years to this

And in your eyes I still see disappointment

Running coldly through your heart like water

So I settle on reaching wider out to an uncertain world

To find new stories, new ways to be

Hoping to somehow find the ways to finally please myself.