I watch you run out of patience
I watch you run out of love
and I watch the man, who hides behind the name father, unravel
*
and I forget how to speak
something happens to my speech
something happens to my voice
in your presence
*
and your absence is an old hole
I take my blanket with me
*
you built an entire house
on my mother’s sense of powerlessness
*
your children subordinate
but we never were
under tyranny
*
and you yanked our souls
into your vindictive chaos
*
my father and I share the same birthmark
*
I was born into my father’s gaslight
Croque-Melpomene 