To My Father Who Isn't Dead

To my father who isn’t dead,

Because I feel like you are. I have completely lost you. We have nothing in common any longer. I am faced each day with your touch on my shoulder. And I want to shy away. I want to yell at you to not touch me. That you aren’t my father any more.

That my father died.

Only I see his ghost - or what pretends to be his ghost.

I wish I knew if it was healthy to feel that way.

Because I don’t know.

How else am I supposed to think about you. The man I love as a father, who would tuck me in, who would tell me he loved me … I can’t see him anymore. He’s been gone for a very long time.

I wish it didn’t hurt so much to have you around. I wish that I could walk into the room you’re in without feeling that you are no longer there.

How do you look on your past life?

The life you’ve seem to all but forgotten.

Do you even know what’s there anymore? That I feel sick to be around you.

Knowing with every part of my being that you no longer see me. That you say your eyes have been open, but that you’ve become blind to the world around you.

I no longer know what to say to you.

I somehow feel obligated to you.

Do you recognize that I go through grief while I am right beside you? Do you see how I avoid saying ‘I love you’ anymore?

That I avoid kissing or hugging you even more than I did a year ago, when I learned you were gone.

At least the dead have a peace. You have none. You only have a way to prove to me that you die a little more every day, to the point I have had to redefine your death over and over again.

Do you even love me anymore?

Or do you just go through the motions of saying it, day in and day out?

I don’t even think you know who I am anymore.

I recognize that I have changed. But I don’t think I could ever compare to who you have turned into.

I have watched you lose your morals, one by one. I’ve heard your ghost speak of all you’ve learned. That you are in a better place now. That you’ve been enlightened.

So strange to hear a ghost speak words of such hate and venom when I remember you being so wonderful.

Where is the man who taught me how to live? How to love? I remember you teaching me and being there for me and never hating other people.

Now I’ve watched your shortcomings become your flaws and then become your vices.

Is the man I was raised by in there somewhere?

Sometimes I think I’m going crazy, you know.

That I am insane, that I am the one who is wrong. But every moral that you have ever taught me screams otherwise.

Why must you tear me like this?

Your past and your present war for me. It feels like it would be so easy to die with you. To disappear wherever you have gone. Then at least I wouldn’t be alone.

But I can’t.

I can’t shake your voice - your real voice - from my head.

What would you have said to your present? What would you have done then? Would you have seen yourself and known that this was bad?

You still talk to me sometimes.

The real you, not your ghost.

In my head.

It’s like you’re actually dead when you do that.

When I remember how we used to be and what you would have said to me.

If you still existed.

You believe in heaven for the good and hell for the wicked now.

But I think you’ll die thinking you were a unrecognized saint and never know the damage you caused.

Maybe never knowing the damaged you caused me.

I used to be the one with sane parents.

It hurts me for my friends just as much as it hurts for me.

Only that’s a lie.

It hurts me for them.

But it hurts me for me more.

I had parents who used to be good.

And now I don’t.

Now I have ghosts.

Who whisper to me about who they used to be.

Their past guides me.

But I now have to walk completely alone.

And that hurts so much.

I have no more adults in my life.

None.

I am the adult in my own life and I can feel it wearing on me.

I find myself searching for them wherever I can. And that’s damaging. Really. To everyone around me. I find myself looking for people to trust like I used to trust you wherever I go. And that is where all the pain comes from. I worry so much about that. That any friendly interaction I have will include oversharing that no one asked for.

No one deserves to hear my life’s story. Not like that. That is far too much trust to be placed in adults who I have hardly met.

But it’s also so hard being alone. I just want to have someone in a position of power to tell me that I will be alright. Or at least that I am not crazy. That I have not gone insane. That I am still me. That it isn’t me who has lost their way.

I feel lost.

You don’t seem lost.

Your so confident in yourself and I’m so scared.

Is it any wonder I’ve tried to find every way that I can to escape this?

School has been my escape. I can only think of people in worse situations, who have no escape.

Only I’m worried about money too. Would it be worth to be in debt to have peace? If the debt would remove that peace in another fashion?

It’s a rock and a hard place. One which I don’t want to be in.

It would be so much easier if you were not a ghost.

If you were far away, the wound would not open and re-open almost every week.

That’s why I want to leave.

In every way that I can.

Do you know that the only reason why I want to study abroad in another country is that it’s a stepping stone away from all of this?

From the ghosts?

Maybe if I like it, I’ll stay there. I want to try and pick a place where I’ll stay. Some place where I can hopefully get a job. Because if I get an education there and then a job, then I can stay. But I wont tell any of you that. That I plan to take everything I will ever want to bring there, just in case, and maybe I’ll come back. Maybe I wont. But I’ll have what I’ll need if I don’t.

It’s running away with a plan.

I’ll run away with a plan somewhere else in America too. I’ll find a place that works.

Whatever it takes.

I just need to be somewhere that isn’t haunted.

Maybe if I’m away from your ghost, I wont be so torn.

I need to know who I am without you around. I need to know who I am when I am not in your echo chamber.

I need to remember who raised me. And I need to find my own people. People who I know are okay with me. Who I can look up to for some guidance.

That isn’t here anymore.

You aren’t here anymore.

I need to think.

I need to try and remove myself so you can’t affect me anymore.

So my father is dead.

My mother is dying or dead as well.

And my sister is lost wherever you are.

I think the only way that I can move forward is to renounce you.

You are dead.

If I some time in the future realize that is not the case … or if I have the strength to visit your grave, then I will.

But I do not have that strength now.

I do not have the ability to look at your ghosts.

You are not my father.

I wish you were, but you aren’t.

My father died a long time ago.

You are simply someone who I live with. I will be polite to you like I would be a stranger.

But I refuse to let you have control over me anymore.

It will be a process to let that sink in. To let that portion of my life be true. But that’s okay. I will take that time to be strong again.

But I want to take back my ability to be okay. I will treat your words like distant words on the radio. You can’t control me.

I miss you so much.

But I’ll keep going like how you’d want me to.

Goodbye, Dad.