Whenever the house was dark
That’s how I would know you were home
Just sitting, watching, fuming
At the things I haven’t done

I always thought and hoped
That sometime in these past
Seventeen years
That maybe it would change

Because I remember
Being six and tucked in
With Mom saying that you wouldn’t
Be like this forever

Later when I didn’t want to leave
My kindergarten class
You told me that I wasn’t listening to God
If I wasn’t listening to you

So I’d kneel by my bed
With my eyes tightly shut
Praying, then peeking above
To see if I’d see you in the sky outside my window

Then as I got older, I watched and learned
I wasn’t the only one that you said was
Disobeying God
Because you yelled a lot at Mom, too

When I was ten
I remember how you glared and left my room
Because I shouted that
You weren’t God

Only then you returned
With a suitcase in your hand
And told me to pack
Because good girls don’t talk back

Now when I sit and soldier through your shouts
I ponder the building of your mind and who built it
Because if I were the contractor
The architect would have been fired

But the building’s beautiful in your eyes
Everyone’s a critic, you say
There isn’t anything wrong with you
The rest of us just don’t know God

So while I sat
And tried to wait for change
You sat in your self-righteousness
That just built up with age

Then last night you left me
I was alone in the dark
I had to find a ride home
To find you watching TV in the living room

What kind of father
Leaves his daughter
Without a backwards glance
What kind of god are you?

It feels like all these years have led
To this huge explosion
That’s so quiet and calm in my head
Save tsunamis of emotion

I won’t be ten anymore
When you offer me the suitcase
I’ll take it and pack
Folding my clothes like an grown up

Mom will come with me
And we’ll flee to a world
Where we won’t be confined
To such an austere God

We were there, you didn’t see us
Kept pretending that you’re strong
We could see how much you’re crumbling
How you’re dragging us along

I will lose this religion and chase true enlightenment
Find that the simplicity of happiness
Does not require sacrifice or fear
To any god

I won’t hate you, though
If your religion has taught us anything
It’s that your hatred hindered
And made us afraid of dreaming

But we won’t worship you anymore
There will be a temple in our hearts
Where we’ll weep
As we knock your statue down

We’ll finally leave, escape
We will never come back
Only stop to stay goodbye
To the man I once called Dad.

(Yay for 80-line poetry written at four in the morning for English class, lol.)

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