He threw the phone like thunder throws itself across the sky,
never concerned with what is displaced or dismayed,
just wanting to display some rage,
a little trailer of the lightning that is on the way.
He threw the phone like she’d made a mistake,
the kind of misstep that could only be trained out of her with fear,
and he threw her a glare,
she stood her ground, as if she was not afraid,
but her shaking hands tucked her curls behind her ear,
betraying her bravado as he poured himself a drink.
This is what happens in this dirty country.
He promised her that he’d never down another drop,
but life is full of promises and disappointments,
and there stood his biggest promise, his biggest disappointment,
a daughter that couldn’t resist dishonouring him.
You’re confused. You’re corrupted.
He’d rather see her dead, he says,
than to be with those deviants and queers,
and while she’s quite interested in the brochure that Death passes quietly under her bedroom door,
she thought she’d give life one more shot,
and unfortunately gives a shit about what he thinks.
One happy parent out of two isn’t bad,
and she’s always known that she will always have a home in the warmth of the one with the womb,
but like all day dreamers,
she wants the one thing she can’t have.
It is a sickness.
I want to tell her that it doesn’t matter.
One day, he will be gone, his name just scratches on stone, his rage, just a memory,
but in that moment, she is beyond my reach,
trapped somewhere that I can’t tread,
and it doesn’t matter that he ends up dead, and she lives without his approval,
on that day, she desperately needed it,
and it never came.
She says she can cope without it,
but she never can,
and she’ll spiral if we don’t resolve this,
but he’s dead, and that girl is unreachable,
so there will never be anything I can do.
No tengo hija.
Some days she remembers the man who threw the phone, and threw her out,
some days, he is too distant, and she just gets the guy in the gallows,
looking down, with no expression, no disappointment, no expectation,
just a still, sombre acceptance,
or at least that’s how she likes to remember him.
Sincerely, Jennifer x 