playing daddy

Don’t try to play daddy when I’ve lived my life without you.

If you didn’t know, while you were gone I grew,

I’ve faced the monsters under my bed

With no arms to run to when I was scared.

You showed me that men only walk away

Now I look for you in these words the cowards say.

 

I chase the love that I think I deserve, finding love in men’s empty sheets

And trying to recreate a broken dream.

 I never learn until it’s too late, until I’m sitting on the shower floor crying. 

Wanting… to go back to a day when I was clean.

 

My father’s love fall short

He left me before my mother gave birth.

Now, I’m trying to understand what I did wrong

When all I wanted was for my father to show me that a man can be strong.

 

Instead I know that men can’t love, unless you give them what they want.

So I do, I give them the apple of my sin.

And who I am is a another reason why my past haunts.

I have each f*****g mistake written on my skin.

 

And now that I am grown

And I have left my sweet mothers home

You want to take pride in what I’ve done with my life?

But daddy where were you when my only friend was a knife?

And I was trying to make sense of all of the things the boys said.

 

I know my mistakes are mine but daddy I needed you to show me the beauty in my smile.

I searched for your love in empty sex after he left, and found it for a night.

I only wish the love I found could last a little while. Or more than a f*****g mile.

I used to have this glow that would burn bright. I’m not sure where it went and that’s why I write.

 

But now you want to play daddy and try to make things right.

I can tell you there is no room for you in my life.

19 years too late, I’ve already learned how to walk

Mothers already taught me how to talk.

 

I know how to be strong but living without a father has left me flawed.

Sometimes I wish that on my birthdays you would have called.

Because now I’m pushing everyone out of my heart

Because the first man to love me left me before my life began to start. 

 

-V. L