Recollection

Recollection

Good morning, father

I don’t need

permission to love

myself

You walk yourself further out

of my life.

You walked yourself out of my life

the day you

split

up.

no longer will I be limited

by what you thought you knew

about me, this is about me.

I grow, I’ve changed

Not the same small second grader

you said goodbye to.

forgot to say goodbye to me,

small and distracted

when you walked out the door

with a packed bag.

I didn’t notice you were gone

for a few days

(how does someone forget their father 

that

fast) one day

you were living

under the roof I called home

we weren’t happy but

at least we could pretend

     together

and then you were gone

I couldn’t find you

tucked away behind corners,

waiting at the bus stop,

or napping off headaches on the couch downstairs

(for a while you slept on the couch downstairs)

strange how someone can 

vanish from a life, 

strange how no one 

talked about it.

no one talks about it

and still here we are. Here you are. we are 

back in

cycles of

love, father

 tell me,

how do I find better love 

than this marriage you forged?

I don’t need permission

to be happy

but I’d like 

your advice to get there, still

if only the shouts of too many fights

and the cries of three children,

could break the cycle,

how happier we would have been 

from the start

do I need your permission to love

when I get married?

Did you wonder,

when you agreed to walk out that door,

if you left me feeling 

broken.

Cristina Donovan

(they / them)