a letter to you.

dear dad,

it's been a while.  

yet you still invade all my thoughts and affect how i perceive things, people, and moments.

i want to hate you. 

i want to punch holes in all the walls of your new kitchen. i want to slash the tires of your jeep that we could never take out. i want to rip out all the flowers you've planted since we moved, because you would never help when my mom asked. i want to take all your pictures of me off the wall because you don't deserve them. i want to destroy everything in the garage because it was always more important than me. 

yet i won't. 

i will not step foot in that house. i do not feel welcome. and you certainly have not invited me back. 

i can sit and cry, or talk about you in therapy, or write about you, or blame your parenting, blame you for anything. 

but it never makes the situation better. 

i am constantly left with questions

and no answers. 

some things show up more than once.

recently i've been struggling with trust. 

time and time again you had broken my trust. our trust. 

when mom had moved out and you were reading the texts between her and i. 

when i decided to confide in you, tell you all that i was struggling with.. just for you to turn it back on me later on. to use it against me. 

so on and so forth.

but you were my dad. i was trusting you with my whole being even after you broke it. 

and now i put all my trust in to everyone else. 

like trying to match opposite puzzle pieces,

they don't fit and they never will.

I KNOW i can't trust the boy that broke my heart over and over again

yet i still feel the need to give it another chance.

I KNOW i can't trust an old friend to keep new secrets when they had just told me all the things someone else told them not to tell anyone. 

yet i still tell them all that's on my mind. 

and I KNOW i can't ever trust you again. 

yet part of me wants to reach out.

i wish you were better. i wish you showed that you cared. i wish you showed me what true love is. what it should look like. 

i wish 

and wish 

and wish. 

but now i look for true love in someone that can never give it to me when i need it most. 

i look for love in someone that will shred my heart to pieces, put it back together, and rip it up again. 

i look for love in someone like you. 

someone who will never take accountability. 

someone who will always make me to be the problem.

someone who will pretend they are all i need, and then vanish when i start to depend on them. 

i avoid love that feels too good to be true. 

love that feels like its a lie. 

something i genuinely should trust. 

yet don't.

once again, i could blame you. i could sit and pour my heart out to you. 

i could tell you how shitty of a dad you were at times

as well as how amazing you were.

i could tell you how much i cry everytime i write about you. 

how it comes pouring out like the rain in may. 

i could tell you how angry i am at you

and how angry it makes me that i still love you. 

and that i still fucking miss you. 

i could tell you how upset i am that you haven't wished me a happy birthday in the past year

and how i don't expect you to text this month.

though its all im hoping for. 

i could tell you how much i talk about you in therapy.

but you would accuse me of talking shit.

i could tell you how upset it makes me that you deleted every picture, post, etc, of me.

and maybe even hid away my photos that were hung on the wall.

removing all evidence of me out of your life. 

like you never had a daughter at all. 

do i not exist to you anymore? 

will you ever break down this wall you built all on your own?

or should i just continue to cry over you because i'll never get closure.

because you'll never understand me

or anything that's happened to me since you and mom got divorced.

imagine if i had died the inevitable death i was expecting.

by my own body eating itself from the inside out

or me taking things into my own hands. 

would you care?

would you take one fucking minute out of your day to think of me?

or was august 16th, 2022, the last you ever thought of me?

all i want is closure,

but i know who you are.

i know how you act.

and how easy it is for you to cut someone off

never to think, speak, or hear from them again. 

and unfortunately you chose your own daughter to be one of those people. 

gone from your mind.

my childhood home.

everything. 

so thank you for the good memories.

but i will never appreciate the unapologetic, narcissistic, and just plain shitty parenting you've done. 

you have dug yourself a hole and that's that. 

i will never get closure. but i hope i can stop wasting my tears on you and your absence. 

-o