I Was Abandoned By My Father

January 4th... On January 4th,
You carried me out of the hospital
You took me home
And made me your baby
scratch that,
I Was a baby.
8 pounds
1 foot
White as snow
I was perfect.
I looked nothing like you
but I was 50% yours
You were over six feet
dark as midnight with ghost skeletons in your closet
As I got to know you
I learned that you were a monster
The monster who used to beat my brother until he bled
The monster who summoned rivers from my mother's eyes
I watched what you did to those around you
To your family
And learned your true colors
My Big Brown Eyes used to follow you when you came from work
Weary and Broody
You would walk past me
Up the stairs
To the bedroom
Into dull complacent sleep.
You are a monster.
You had nothing to fear.
I learned your true colors
When I was old enough
To understand that
Being 50% of you was no longer enough
That your mistresses
and wh*res of the week
Were much more important than the man inside you
The man
That carried me
out of the hospital
on January 4th.
I bet those days you forgot to pick me up from school
Your dark arms were wrapped around her waist
Caressing her fingers
Kissing her lips
All the while,
I sat down on a dark playground
Waiting for your arrival.
Waiting for January 4th.
You would arrive at 7 PM
Drop me off in your cold mansion
And leap once again into the dark night
Tangling 
Your every inch into it
Your dark
Misty secrets
Too dark,
Too weaved into you
To do me the mercy
Of releasing you back to me.
Before I knew it,
The love you carried
on January 4th
Had unraveled.
You've betrayed me in more ways than I can explain
In ways that still haunt me today
You left your baby
Into the hands of damaged goods
Into the hands of a beautiful woman
Who had great dreams
Great Ambitions
Only to be betrayed 
By the man 
As dark as midnight.
My mother.
When you disappeared
Her innocent eyes turned cold
Her body numb
She was no longer a mother
She was a ghost stuffed in your closet
Stuffed.
Soulless.
Dead.
You left me motherless.


Then I grew up.
5'8
Butterscotch colored
Round lips,
Round face
Wide hips
Full of grace.
I strive to be my best
To forget about
The Brown Eyed Baby Girl you left behind
The one who's eyes once followed your every move.
I try to forget about her.
But she's all I see.
She's all I see
When victimize myself through self-preserved men
When I freeze in fear  because I don't know how to survive
When I fall down and no one pulls me back up.
She's all I see in my living nightmares.
I can still see her
With her white and red rosy dresses
Her shiny little shoes 
Clean white socks with puffy ruffles 
Red ribbons
On either side of her head.
She's all I see.

From the moment I wake up
To the moment I go to sleep.
That little girl haunts me.
You left her behind
And she never  outgrew it
Trapped in the body of an adult,
She doesn't consider herself a woman
Worthy of love 
You left that girl behind
And now she screams at me for something I can't give.
She screams for love
For liberation
She screams to be set free
To have a chance to grow up.
But you see,
She can't
Because the dark man who carried her out of the hospital
on January 4th is gone.
And he is
never
coming back.