When I’m being malicious with myself,
I like to imagine a world
Where my father saw me as his child first
Before he saw me as a girl
I like to imagine a world
Where he wasn’t the first person
To instill a fear of men in me
That they would hurt you
Just because they can
I like to imagine a world
Where loving him did not mean betraying myself
Because when I was neglected as a child
It wasn’t him that I grew to hate
It was myself
He always told me I had a sharp tongue
So, I taught myself to swallow my words
Wash them down with the misogyny
Forced down my throat for as long as I can remember
Unlearning it meant figuring out
That the problem was not what I said
It was having anything to say at all
I watched as my brother flourished
Grew into a well-spoken man,
A skill he must have picked up
From speaking over me
I would look to my father for acknowledgment
Desperate to see if he’d somehow heard me
Hoping by some miracle he’d actually want to
And the nothing I was met with
Was louder than anything he could ever have said
When I am not an extra in his play
My father advises me to stand tall
Says I should be more assertive
Use my voice
The same voice he had taken from me
All those years ago
You see I am the only daughter of a man
Who does not see women as equals
So, I would never measure up to my brother
And yet was always held to a higher standard
The irony of expecting more from somebody
You already deemed less
And I couldn’t stand tall underneath the weight
Of all that was expected of me
It was when my knees buckled and finally gave
When I was literally forced to put it down
That was when I realized
It was never mine to carry
What a relief now to be the child that strayed
It was on that path I found myself
I was never built for the cages
He so desperately wished to put me in
And I know that things could have been worse
But that doesn’t take away from the fact
That they should have been better.
I no longer begrudge him that though
Because I stopped holding him accountable
For not giving me things
I learned I could give myself
And although he ought to have
He didn’t know better
And that’s okay
Because now…
I do.
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