i always called you papa as a joke
my internal desire for paternal love acting out
one i was robbed of so early on
one you played along with
and got offended when i called you by name last sunday


here’s the thing pa.
you come and you go as you please
and i do the same thing jet setting around the world
but you live around my heart
stuck to it like gum under bus seats
at the bottom left hand corner
i feel you when i hear my own heart beat


it’s the hugs
i swear that’s what it is
none of us are good at serious talks
so we just hug it out


anything from “hey my dad’s in prison”
to “i don’t think i want to even live anymore”
don’t even talk about boundaries and midnight carousel rides
we got rooftop sleepovers covered


nights out drunk in piazzas too
i fit in your shoulders and you still walk me to school even at 20
what a spoiled little child
most important of all i think
i learn that you are mine and at the same time not


like breakfast at tiffany’s
no one belongs to anyone
we don’t put each other in cages
but sometimes i wish you’d keep me locked up in your arms like you do


papa i have to admit
when you’re so caught up in your head that you don’t talk to me
i take a razor up my veins
and i wish for chemicals to drown me away
i long for nothing more than to feel that burn down my throat or pulsating foreign heat in my blood


drowning my feelings away
drowning you away


you’d think that after everything we’ve been through you’ll stick around
but you have that habit to leave when things go bad
to shield me from it is what you say
but i want to die when you are away


so please stay away
don’t keep leaving me then coming around getting angry when i call you by your first name again.
because what the fuck papa


one already left me
at least he had the guts to do it and be definitive
get a grip will ya
are you my pa or not?

–anonymous

september 2019