My Father

Zyanna Maynard

My father has always felt a lot like my depression, but my depression has been there more than he has They were waves that came crashing over my life and eventually I got used to the idea of drowning

My father has always felt more like a lost object and I never seemed to have the time to hang up posters, But usually I didn’t want to

Prison walls felt more like resting periods, I was finally able to catch my breath

He was finally forced to think of his actions, like the fact he had neglected me for so long. My dad only knows 3 things about me

My name

My age

And the fact that I’m his

My dad told lies like it was his first language

Like

“I’m going to do more for you kid” Or

“I’ve never done anything wrong to you”

It was like he was trying to throw out life preservers made of stone

My dad never liked me

And he barely knew how to love me

I was his black sheep child that no one got to know about My grandmother didn’t know of this beating heart in a shell of a body that looked so similar to hers

I was a secret in a bottle set adrift in a vast ocean of excuses as to why they didn’t know

I didn’t know that my father would be my first heartbreak

I never knew that the idea of drowning would one day be the same as breathing, how my father would be a persistent heartache in this life. How could a girl love her dad when she wanted to breathe and all he wanted her to do was sink.