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"I was daddy's little girl," by Kisha Sanders

I was daddy's little girl
but daddy, I'm a woman now
and all the empty words
and apologies won't fix this.
You can't find a Band-Aid
big enough for my wounds.
My scars bleed deep below the surface.
I'm no longer the three year-old
with the scraped knee for
you to kiss and make better.
No longer the angry child
who couldn't understand how
you could lie and
gave her mother hell for it.
Three months of therapy fixed that.
Three months to decide my
'suicidal tendencies were you fault,
because you left me, and
it wasn't my fault.
I really am a valid person. Fuck that,
fuck you because three months is nothing
compared to ten years of wondering
why I wasn't good enough
for you to stay, good enough
for you to acknowledge me
I remember you, you know that.
Not you, but your cigarettes
Kools, your green car with its
broken window
and your fist through the bedroom door.
Your drugs on the dining room table
and I went out and found a boy
just like you
I let him fuck me, fuck me up.
I deserved it, and it felt good,
being used, feeling wanted
by some "man"
since I wasn't good enough
But I know that's not true.
And I wonder what you remember,
a little girl calling you a bum?
Well, I was right wasn't I?
Are you what I made you?
As I am what you created?
I took on your addictions,
your rage, I called my mother
a bitch at seven
or eight. I didn't know what it meant.
I didn't know what you'd done to her.
I was daddy's little girl
and only heard the arguments
through closed doors.
I only grew up around the hole you left.
I had a friend once,
whom I told he had restored my faith
in black men
Although I watched the ones
around me crumble and leave
I watched myself crumble and leave
as the visits became more infrequent,
the money stopped and
everyone else always had more.
They had a mother and a father.
Women became stability, became solace
and it was their affection I sought
as I began to believe I'd never be good enough
for any man to love, to find beautiful
enough to stay with me
watch me grow
And I grew to love, grew to hate,
and to finally accept that
I was daddy's little girl.
But daddy, I'm a woman now,
my own woman.
January 2, 1998
consider this discourse formally closed.