Dear Stepfather

Poetry

I have wished for your death every day, I have wished for it, and yet I feel robbed.

I can’t even remember the last time I saw you, the last time you spoke my name or told me to stop chewing my food with my mouth open, the last time I saw tears that you made fall from faces splash into cupped hands, yet I have wished for your death.

Every day, I have wished for it.

I dreamed of confronting you, of finding your name and address in the phonebook, and making that drive. I dreamed of showing up at your door, baseball bat in hand, maybe a pistol tucked snug into the back of my pants like the comforting palm of a loved one pushing me onto a stage and saying don’t be afraid.

I have no memory of your actual voice, just a distant, hollow echo of screams that sounded like dinosaurs caged, like rabid dogs, like breaking glass and bones piercing the fleshy veneer of happiness, coming to my restless ears, not sleeping in my twin-size bunk.

I don’t know how you would sound now, much like I have never heard the voice of the Devil.

But I wish for your death, every day, I wish for it.

You are the reason I want all of my guitars to be painted black, the reason I hate the thought of pain inflicted upon innocent eyes, the reason my sister and I were never close and are now closer than ever, the reason my brother walks with a haunted stare full of questions unanswered, the reason he loves martial arts and music though he’ll never understand

why,

the reason my mother clutches to family like a deflating life raft, a wall full of photos, none containing your face.

You are the reason I will never live in a trailer.

For years, I have carried this hate. For years, I have felt like a book with missing pages. For years, I have wanted nothing more than to bury a knife to the hilt in the cartilage of your sternum while screaming your name.

For years, I have wanted an end, a closure, a deep sigh of relief like the sound of a stone lid sliding off a well, looking down to find a dark pool of reflections, my face and the sun.

For years, I have wished for your death. Every day, I have wished for it.

But today, when I heard that you had died on January the 13 th, most likely alone and of cancer in the hospice ward of a nursing home, today when I found that my wish had finally come true, nothing happened.

Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing happened.