{"sf1_id":1793643,"sf2_id":"Oe58VBK1","title":"Poem: For My Dad","author":"zetasyanthis","words":355,"posted_at":"2021-12-08T02:54:00.000Z","tags":["Abuse","Depression","Poem","Sad","Suicide","mental health"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1793643-poem-for-my-dad","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/Oe58VBK1","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/cb/c5/cbc59adf-6b15-4641-9196-72212e3a708e","description":"#13 of 2021 Mental Health Crisis\n\nA sad poem about all the damage my dad has done.","content":"How do I even explain the horror?  \nHow do I explain the fear?  \nHow do I laugh in despair and communicate  \nhow I really feel?\n\nFrom bouts so dark I knew not depths  \nto poor, abandoned child,  \nyou did much damage to yourself  \nyour anger became wild\n\nRages and storms and calms and lulls  \nmade relapse all the worse,  \na word unsaid, and glance not met  \nwould send you to your worst.\n\nIt would matter why, because  \nIt wouldn't matter at all.  \nIt wouldn't matter in the end;  \nwe'd have to forget it all.\n\nAnd from those shattered memories  \na hist'ry I must patch  \nUncertain broken memories  \nwith huge and unknown gaps.\n\nAcross those gashes, whimpering,  \nmy tiny voice must fly  \nwithout knowing, without guessing,  \nwhich one will make me die.\n\nI cannot know the bottom, deep,  \nthe hurt you set my mind,  \nI only know approaching it  \nis filled with hate and knives.\n\nHow do I now explain the fear?  \nHow do I cover terror?  \nOf parent, caretaker whispering  \nthose words of utter horror.\n\nFor \"once I get my hands on you\"  \nand \"if mom wasn't here\"  \nyour punishment would be five times,  \nor ten times more severe.\n\nWith threats you kept us tightly bound,  \nwith violence more still,  \nus striving to heal our own hearts  \nand at times yours as willed.\n\nBut we could not fill in that hole.  \nWe could not bridge that gap.  \nWe were to busy suffering  \nto even manage laughs.\n\nFrom all the mem'ries good and bad  \nit's wonder we survived;  \nI cannot say how long I'll live  \nself-hate drives me to die.\n\nWith frantic heartbeats, wracking coughs,  \ntremors were then revealed  \ntremors that scared me even more  \nthan specialists in fields.\n\nThough could not find the root cause then,  \nthey could not understand,  \ntheir tests and then their bruises...  \nrevealed death's long hand.\n\nFor which child when you are 13, remembers  \nthings so bleak  \ntheir parents seeming all at fault  \nNo cause because they're weak.\n\nNo cause because they couldn't see,  \nNo cause 'cause they refused  \na doctor to take them from me  \nand raise me less abused.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"2021 Mental Health Crisis","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1793638-poem-compliments.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1793644-poem-the-sea.json"}}