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Searching for Daddy
You left her searching through various faces
On different pages of many magazines.
Seeing pictures depicting families, Happy
Peaceful, their lives serene.
She shows me and defines each persons role in the pose
I look at her gleaming eyes just to realize that
Right below my eyes sits your nose.
She smiles my smile with your lips and she points to pictures
With your hands.
Skips over the mommies and the children
Her fingers fixate on the man.
“Wook mommy, dis de Daddy”
She speaks it with such ease.
While inside my heart races as my chest begins to
Squeeze the salty tears I buried so many nights ago between
pillows and sheets,
Trying to forget the questions of WHY, WHAT, WHERE and WHEN.
Like, WHY did you leave her, not me HER.
She was the seed that supposedly our love fertilized
The seed that will grow into a beautiful fragrant flower that is nothing but filled with love.
See, I have already been tended to, planted and pruned and have bloomed and will continue to grow.
But who will help me nurture this flower with love, weed out the evils of the world around her.
Water her with the wisdom of this, a man’s world.
I can just teach her as a woman.
And WHAT happened to you being a part of her life, Not my life,
Her life.
Daddy’s little girl
Daddy’s only girl
The one you said you would treasure, be there to guide, protect
And cherish forever.
Teach about life from a Man’s point of view because she needs two
But, now someone else will have to do the job that was meant for YOU.
And WHERE is the financial and emotional support for her, NOT for me, for HER.
The precious one
The one you say you love
The same one who’s birthdays you miss
The same one who laid on a hospital bed as I cried and I prayed to God to heal her
While you sat, not even caring enough pick up the phone to call her.
WHERE are the diapers that she no longer wears?
Or the clothes
Or the shoes
Or the food to help strengthen her little body
WHERE is it all?
And WHEN, when will I no longer have to play a dual role?
Being both Mommy and Daddy to a child that sees just one but wants for two. That needs for two to really be complete.
WHEN will my tears and pain cease?
Weeping at times while trying to give her the world
But always coming up short of the one thing, the one that I could never supply, the one I could never be
And WHEN will I be able to provide an answer to her questions?
“Dats DADDY”
She says convinced that somehow this picture IS a reflection of the portion of herself that she has never seen.
“No baby it’s not”
Is the dagger that rips into the heart of pure innocence.
Not understanding WHY
WHATever happened happened
Not knowing WHERE or who you are
But still wondering,
WHEN will she get to see YOUR face?
