I used to say that maybe if I liked Bruce Springsteen
My father would love me.
That to earn his adoration I needed to perform
Thunder Road for an audience of thousands.
His was the first concert I went to,
I cried the whole time, the music too loud and the
Lights impairing my vision,
We left after the third song.
As we drove out of the parking lot, the radio played Jungleland.
He hummed along.
I was his ladybug, he told me.
He painted my walls purple and laminated my drawings,
And he tried to sing me to sleep but I needed silence.
When I was still for long enough, he’d stroke my cheek
And creep away. When the door shut i’d sleep.
He told me that no photo can capture the beauty of the moon,
That no sunset can be watched after dark.
Then his knees gave out, so I’d deliver him his mail.
He’d say thank you, and I wouldn’t respond.
He knows that when the heart stops beating
and the body goes limp, the skin cold and the lips purple,
There is nothing left to do,
But if I finally let go he would compress my chest
Until his wrists broke and my ribs were rubble.
In May he found me bound to my floor
With my hair chopped off, scissors helps to my stomach
And bones showing. He threw himself down
And held me until my breath returned and my eyes could close.
The week after I noticed the bruise on his calves
And the scratches on his neck.
He peeled me grapefruits.
He would eat the bruised half, and I would pile
Tablespoons of sugar on mine.
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