A letter to dad

Toss me a few inches into the air and I’ll giggle, because there is no fear of falling, right dad?

I showed you my scraped knee because there is no doubt that you’ll make it better, right dad?

“Just be honest and you won’t get in trouble” right dad?

I should always be myself, right dad?

I should speak up when I don’t feel comfortable, right dad?

You love me unconditionally, and you’ll always protect me, right dad?

That’s why 15-year-old me was honest with you about her broken heart,

But that’s what I get for being a “slut”.

“Did you try shutting up?”

“Well, you gained some weight.”

“You quit soccer, you’ll quit anything, and it shows.”

“You’re a kid, try having some real problems.”

“I’ve given you too good of a life for you to complain.”

“Your sister doesn’t have these issues for attention.”

I stopped deserving that “unconditional love”, right dad?

When I showed you my wounds,

You pressed your thumbs into them.

But I was wrong for crying, right dad?

Because I was too young and privileged to know pain like you did, right dad?

But then you smirked and told me you’ll make sure I feel it too.

My biggest protector became my most threatening predator.

When I begged you to save mom because I didn’t want to lose a parent,

You decided I picked her over you, and that instead of losing one, I should lose two.

My emotions were too big for 16, and so you told me to bury them.

While you placed the weight of your anxieties on my shoulders.

And I couldn't understand it.

So, I deserved that bloody lip, right dad?

Family fights because they love each other, right dad?

We’re too much alike, so we butt heads, right dad?

We’re basically the same person, so I shouldn’t take it personally when you tell me you wish I was dead, right dad?

Nurture vs nature

Love vs hate

Cry to me that you don’t feel loved as a father, and I don’t give you enough credit for taking care of me.

I don't realize what a difficult job it is to raise me.

Remind me that I am not a walk in the park, I am not a pleasure to have in class, I do not work well with others.

Remind me I am a burden, I am inconvenient, I am annoying, I am wrong.

Remind me that it isn’t your “place to get involved” as you stand over mom pinning me to the ground with her hands around my neck.

Remind me that I need to “learn to fight my own battles” as my 16-year-old friend called the cops while you bashed my head into a window.

Thank you for the life lessons you taught me,

like when you told me the cop only accepted money from you that night because I was annoying, and that’s why he claimed there were no signs of abuse while my face was covered in blood.

And that it was my fault you got me because I was running away and I should never turn my back to run when getting attacked.

And that if I was more athletic I would've been able to fight you off.

I’ll always wonder if you truly hated me, or if we were that similar, and you just hated yourself.

Because you’d stop hating me when you’d need me to sit up with you because the coke was making your heart beat a little too fast and you were scared.

And I would feel so fulfilled when you’d beg me for help, thinking you loved me enough to need me.

But that was a naïve way of thinking.

Just like calling 911 and telling the doctors you were high was childish, and I was a “pussy” for getting scared just because you “passed out a little” and I should mind my own business.

Thank you for telling me I can always talk to you when “17 feels like the end of the world” because at the time, it really did.

So, when I told you that I felt like hurting myself and didn’t understand why, did you leave that noose and that suicide note in my room telling me to “sign here” because you wanted me to do it, or because you wish you had the balls to do it yourself?

I wasn’t a perfect daughter. I’m sorry I called you a bad father for letting mom get as far gone as she did. And for that, maybe I deserved my door being taken off the hinges, both my eyes being black, and my wrists looking like they were shackled.

Back in your day, kids got spanked all the time.

And you turned out fine, right dad?

And you were only doing it because you love me, right dad?

And during the divorce hearing, you only told the judge (and sent me the transcripts) that I was disruptive and argumentative and aggressive and angry and uncontrollable and unlovable and unfixable and a danger to those around me and a loose cannon and that I bleed and bruise too easily, because you had my best interest at heart, right dad?

My dad, my protector, the man that would toss me a few inches in the air as a baby...

just to beat me into the ground as I grew up.