The things you felt entitled to say to me
Should never have left your mouth, not yours.
The way your eyes stared at me in disgust,
The way you demonised my body, that you had made it,
That I had been a part of you.
You always told yourself
That you screamed at me and hit me out of love and care,
That I had to learn the hard way, to not repeat your mistakes.
Is this what you lived through? How could you possibly
Do the same things to me? Do you not feel what it did to you
When you cry in front of the mirror?
I started to believe that it was normal to cry every single day.
I remember how you watched me eat, how ashamed you were
When I opened my mouth. There was no time and place for me
To be seen. I heard how you talked about women.
In my childlike mind I wanted to be one of them.
I’d be on your mind.
At least.
Everybody glorified you, your posture and charisma.
I had no idea who you were but I liked the fake persona better.
That wasn’t the one dealing with me and I started to abhor it.
I gave you so much of my life, it should never have been that way.
You’d wake me up in the middle of the night to terrorise me.
I slept better with tears on my pillow, the magic formula
Of your upbringing. I never learned how to protect myself.
I learned how to expose myself, divulge all my secrets,
Tell everybody everything about myself and I paid the price.
And there you always were, snorting, rubbing my broken heart
In your self-righteous sentences telling me how knowledgeable you were.
You were a fraud, Father.
This is you, this is me, don’t you understand?
You led me into the darkest places without a guiding light.
And it would always be my fault.
I wouldn’t be comfortable in your arms, I only knew them to be
Painful to me.
It’s either sex or violence with you, everything else
Was non-existent and blurred. Pick one. What kind of attention do you want?
Do you need? You couldn’t get enough. I had nothing more to give.
Scamming me, abandoning me, forgetting to pick me up, leaving me somewhere
In the middle of the night, not giving a shit.
You said whatever you wanted to me and had no idea
What you caused within me, what you still infringe and abuse and let resurface.
And you lie there, pulling me down, holding my scarf, I want to burn it,
Your lips on my skin feel like acid, it’d be so unfamiliar, you put your
Hands on my life, you want me to trade it with yours, that’s what a good
Girl would do, save you, because I love you, right, yes, be nice, don’t forget
All the things that I’ve done for you, you owe me, you bankrupted me,
Your life is your fault. I gave it you, now give it back to me.
Croque-Melpomene 