Daddy

More than twelve years I traced my hand along this wall, A little less from touch and an entire chemistry of feels. I was a third chess piece in the cruel twisted game my parents fought. Without a thought, I watched as they stood silently and threw daggers at each other. I've yet to see the end of this hallway. Sometimes a door shows up an I can stop and try to look inside.
 "Daddy?"
At some pionts I'll hear his voice and have one question hanging off my lips. I can ask my mother, if I just want any answer but the real one. I could've asked my grandmother, but like everyone, she doesn't know why. He's always been a shadow of a thought on the wall of this long, narrow hallway. And maybe I will never get an answer. If I stop at a door and he is inside he stands there, politely changing the subject and then saying "You're just like your mother." And then slamming the door in my face.
My mother is sadly the same.  Talking, Taking, Talking "Why doesn't daddy love me?"
"You're just like your father!"
Into darkness once again.
Has this battle has calmed down since I graduated high school? Or has it reached such new levels that they finally have grown silent in there waning old ages?
A memory will show up, and I will watch my life being replayed through a dirty glass window and wondering what I could have done and how it would have changed.
Maybe I wouldn't be this way, maybe I could have both of them in a happy normal dream of a life I can barely sleep to.
I can barely sleep.
This hallway is dark. All I can hear is the ringing of phone calls going unanswered, The questions he left unheard, the tears he never saw. WHat if he never sees me? What if he never speaks to me? Why was it always about Rae and Max? Where's your Daddy's girl? Aren't you happy I'm alive? Dad??!
Tonights window was especially an old one. I foolishly cleaned off a section, thinking that I heard my dad being cheeful. He was, but not because of me.
"Way to go Max! That's my boy! Tammy! You're taking forever! How hard is it to quiet down one kid?!"
"She wants you, you f*****g a*****e."
"I have more important things to pay attention to."
And yet again, that question comes to my mind. A family that looks like a broken abandoned house yet, with a basement so lively and full.
My chest is missing.  Everyone has given me the wrong keys to the basement. Where could they be? They must be at the  end of this hallway.
"Where are you Daddy?"

Author's Note

If home is where the heart is, Where do I live?