a letter to my father.

I thought I’d be writing this to you on a different day I had visualised for years. the day I’d be free. the day you wouldn’t be here anymore and I’d have the valiance to finally scream out all my unkempt anger.

this day has come sooner than I’d expected, and in different circumstances. much better than I’d hoped them to be. and I have some things I want to say.

I want to tell you that you’ll always be the greatest source of hurt and pain. I hadn’t seen anyone who had hurt me and who would ever hurt me more than you. it is diabolical to how much lengths you’ve crossed just to inflict me, my mother and my sister — and my whole family — with pain that we need so much time and effort to heal. it’s unreasonable how you never listened to me despite telling you countless times that I did not feel well. it’s terrible that you’d blocked all of my attempts to talk to you honestly. 

I want to tell you that you did not give me a choice but to lie to you. anytime I’d say or you’d discover the truth, you’d destroy me. you would take everything I love and throw it away. you would hit me up until I’d bruise and bleed. this is not what I call fatherhood. it’s not fatherhood because I’d never come back to you for protection or safety. you are everything I ever feared. you are everything I ever wished I never want to be.

I want to tell you how you’ve broken my identity. I still don’t know who I am. I lived all these years not knowing what a father or even a man should be like. I had to be my own man at the expense of my femininity which I so desperately need at this point in my life. I had to climb all the mountains you did not, make the money you never owned, learn the knowledge you had no faith in and reach goals you did not have the resilience to fight for. you made a man out of me— strong, withstanding and ferociously critical and I don’t want to be like that. you did not give me the chance to experience my womanhood. all you ever wanted was me to become just another version of you, who would eat itself up just to serve and please you.

I spent so many years of my life doing things I shouldn’t do until I lost the energy to find out who I really was. there were years that I was a shell of a person, pouting over my books, spending all my nights alone, isolation killing me inside. all I had were notebooks and touch screens to dramatise all the monocoloured schemes abound. i had to glamorise every little thing just to see what I was missing. you made me clutch at razors and watch myself bleed. you made me hate myself. you made me lost trust in my body. you made me sick. you made me disown my beliefs and my instincts.

I’m not sure what I like doing. whatever I try, all I feel is the grappling fear of not being enough, and the formidable pain of always being outside of my comfort zone. I always feel like I’m outside my comfort zone since I never feel safe enough to trust myself, because I did was betray my existence just to live with you.

I don’t know what safety feels like. I don’t know how to protect myself. you are the fat around my hips and thighs that I cannot get rid of. you are the anxiety that comes when I lose structuredness. you are the muscles I gained. you are the lost spark in my face. you are the crooked smile. you are the beauty I cannot get back. you are the failed attempts of confidence and power.

but you know what? I don’t care anymore. the sweetest revenge would be to create myself again. to renew everything. to take all paths I need to not recognise who I’m becoming. I want to tell you that I’ll be right here, trying everything. I’ll be here finding myself and receiving God’s miracles and blessings made just for my heart to get moulded by.

I pray that you find happiness. I pray that this is not the end of you. I pray that you become too happy that you leave me be in peace, or in whatever life I choose to have. 

now, I need you to let me go and allow me to find myself independently. I need you to allow me to find my passions, my hobbies and make mistakes. fail. ruin my life and get it back to its glamour again. all I pray for is the cord between you and I to be severed permanently, just so that I can heal.

I let you go. and I wish you well, in my deepest heart. I pray you find love. I pray you find God.