Happy 9 Year Anniversary

Happy Anniversary.

How has it been nine years? Nine years since I thought you finally wanted to be a part of my life. Nine years since I dared to hope you would learn how to be "my dad." You made me believe you wanted to understand me, and connect with me. It was nine years ago that you shared stories of my heritage, made me proud of my nose, and for a fleeting moment, made me think you would listen without judgment.

But it’s also been nine years since that memory went blank, and the next thing I recall is the wall, feeling you press into me. The blurriness, the confusion, the pain—it all still looms over me like a storm cloud that never dissipates. I can still see it, feel it: the panic setting in, the breath caught in my throat. Were you pulling your pants down to finish, or were you pulling them up? That detail, that horrifying detail, is lost in a fog of fear, painted with a frost-tipped gloss that numbs my senses. To this day, nothing makes sense. I can feel myself breathing...1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Breathe out. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Breathe in. Repeat. Get away. Survive.

Do you think of today as often as I do? Does it haunt you the way it haunts me? Do you get a pit in your stomach, or feel any regret for losing your one daughter? Or am I still not a daughter to you, just a nameless, faceless thing that’s better forgotten? Have you told anyone your dirty secret, or do you spin a different tale, one where I’m crazy, and you’re the victim? Do you pretend I never even existed?

In case you wondered, I have three beautiful children now. Children that I would never touch in the way you touched me. I welcome their cuddles, sleep next to them each night, because lying next to me gives them a sense of safety. When they lay beside me, I protect them from their bad dreams—unlike you, whose body next to mine still haunts me.

During the night, I instinctively check to make sure they are breathing, safe, untouched. And not once have I "accidentally" assaulted them. I never got them confused with a lover. They are just my babies.

Even now, I still struggle to find the words to voice how I feel. Maybe I’ll never truly know how to describe the depth of this pain, the confusion, the betrayal. But when the memories suffocate me, when the walls close in and your presence is too much to bear, there is one song that brings me peace. In those moments, I play "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived," and it makes me think of you. I just changed a few of the words.

Was any of it true?

Gazing at me starry-eyed

Just a "father" passing through

Who the fuck was that guy?

You tried to buy my love

caged me within my own frantic mind

held by the chains you painfully forged

I hope you know what it feels like

And I don't even want you back, I just want to know

If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal

And I don't miss what we had, but could someone give

A message to the smallest man who ever lived?

You hung me on your wall

Stabbed me with your push pins

In public, showed me off

Then sank in stoned oblivion

'Cause once your child had come

You treat her like an also-ran

You didn't measure up

In any measure of a man

And I don't even want you back, I just want to know

If rusting my sparkling summer was the goal

And I don't miss what we had, but could someone give

A message to the smallest man who ever lived?

Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?

Did you sleep with a gun underneath your bed?

Were you writing a book? Were you a sleeper cell spy?

In fifty years, will all this be declassified?

And you'll confess why you did it

And I'll say, "Good riddance"

'Cause it wasn't sexy once you were no longer hidden

I would've died for your sins

Instead, I just died inside

And you deserve prison, but you won't get time

You'll slide into inboxes and slip through the bars

You crashed my life and then fled into the night

You said normal girls were boring

But you were gone by the morning

You kicked out the stage lights

But you're still performing

And in plain sight you hid

But you are what you did

And I'll forget you, but I'll never forgive

The smallest man who ever lived