I had a father once, when I was
a little girl.
A blurry bug-eyed man in a photo-
graph I keep in an old-fashioned
album.
I remember his voice when
he said my nickname.
I can hear it in my mind if I
try hard enough.
Playful. Happy.
(But what do I know about other
people's happiness?)
I remember his mustachioed smile.
His teeth.
I don't remember his laugh.
I remember climbing onto his
sunblock greasy shoulders.
I remember shouting in a burst
of joy as I jumped into the ocean.
I remember a picnic table, a glass
carafe of wine.
I remember my mother saying
his name the way she always did.
She was afraid.
He wasn't a good man.
He wasn't a good father.
He was a man.
He was a father.
He was The Man.
I remember gritted teeth. Locked
jaw. Eyes illuminated from within,
a manic match to a Joker grin.
I was sixteen. I remember standing between him and the dog, him
and my mother.
"Over my dead body," I said.
(Which in hindsight is pretty
damned funny.)
I no longer remember what
happened next.
I no longer remember being
dragged down the hall by my hair.
It's only from long repetition of
memory that I remember being
folded over, my face crushed
into the carpet, lights exploding
in the darkness, a needle
pressure in my chest.
I no longer remember sitting
on the carpet, drool smear on
my cheek, looking at a clump
of my own hair.
I'm sure my mother was hysterical
(she was always hysterical) but I
don't remember.
I don't remember standing at the
window looking down at the
patrol car in the driveway as
my father and the officer
shared a laugh.
I don't remember the time of year
or the weather.
I remember the year only from
long repetition.
It was referred to in whispers
as "the incident" but it wasn't
the only one.
(He never struck her, not once.)
I remember frenetic energy.
He was always up at dawn.
He ate almost nothing.
He ran, he jogged.
He went to the gym.
He was rarely home, less often
present.
(How do you spend seventeen
years in a household without a
conversation?)
That's where I get my frenetic
energy, the drive to do too much,
the curiosity to learn more, to
try the new, the different, to
strive for self improvement,
for enlightenment (even if it
turns out to be wrong, sadly).
I got his Polish nose, though
my hook is less pronounced.
I got his brown hair that always
looked like it needed a trim, as
if he'd never quite left the 70's.
It's funny how a moment of so
short a duration has elongated
through time, faded in its
particulars, lost its details,
blurred into an afterimage,
a backdrop, a slow motion
scene behind frosted glass,
an infinite reminder of
finite possibilities
that has left me
unable to
recognize
the
world
without it.
I shaved my head once a month
for seventeen years.
I used to think about writing him
a letter, but I never did.
He doesn't know who I am,
who I've become.
He can't remember who I was.
I've been blacked out by blackouts.
In the end it doesn't matter.
I've changed too much.
I know too much.
I've grown too old.
I used to have a dad, but that was
a long time ago, when I was a
little girl.
I don't miss him.
I don't miss him anymore.
August 1, 2026
