My Father Is My Poison Of Choice

By Fiona Kezia Winston

My father's voice is a ocean of breaking syllables when he sees the storm in mine. I scream: "Do you see me, dad?, do you see me dad?", when he walks before me. Mommy told me I have his nose, bulbous and too big for a girl but just fine on a man's face, his face and my eyes, they're as stormy as his, I overhear him tell my mom I'm just like him, my eyes, my nose, my steely resolve, I almost become visible that one fated moment, until I hear him finish the sentence, "I wish she were a watered down version of everything I am". In other words, my head translates: too wild, too wild, too wild, I'm sorry I'm too wild, I'm sorry, I'm sorry till I'm actually not.

My father's hands were not built for hugs, my mother tells me. My father's hands were not built for love. My father's eyes were not made to see me, to only look past everything that's wild, everything that's not the calm of the sea, but I'm a hurricane, he knows, he knows, he knows because I'm him, inside out, if only I could rip my skin inside out and show him what I'm made of,

He'd see:

I'm him, I'm him, I'm him.

His eyes, his nose, his everything.

And still invisible only to him.

My father's hands were not built for love, apparently.

But mine were built for love and war, so I hug him when he goes to sleep, there's a tearstain the shape my my face, on his tee when he wakes up.

And when he looks past me in the morning,

I tell him, my hands, my hands, my damned hands made me do it.

It wasn't me.

But I'm invisible anyways and so it doesn't matter, he doesn't see.

His eyes weren't made to see me.

Or that's what I'm told.

Because there's no tearstain the shape of his face on my tee, when I wake up.

So I keep being invisible.

I keep looking for a dad in every man I see.

By Fiona Kezia Winston