im not sure when the pedestal my father once stood on crumbled

 

his voice once made magic from oxygen and took me to fairytale lands 

i cannot go there now while im clenching my fists under the table wishing he would stop pulling apart my mind

 

i think of little me barrelling to the door when i heard him come home from work as i slip into my room and try to look busy

i wonder when his presence became a disturbance

 

he told me he would always be on my side always 

so why does he advocate for any opinion but mine when i try to shake him to the present

 

he knew anything and everything and would take his time explaining his world to me

but my world looks different to his and no matter how much paint i use i cannot make them the same again

 

i wonder if he longs for the past too, the little girl who hung onto his every word

replaced by the woman who shakes her head and scoffs at his beliefs

 

there are whole parts of me he will never get to know

 

god is not in our house and he is not in me 

in his place i am filled with an inside out fire and i want to throw it up and watch it consume the house

 

i think of 3, 7, and 11 year old me and i miss her dad. 

 

i don’t know who the man in my house is or how he is capable of so much hate but it wrings my brain to mush and makes me scream for the past

 

i want my dad and i dont know if he’ll ever come home.