Dear Editor,

In the wake of another Father’s Day, may this child’s voice be heard. I pray also that fathers everywhere will realise through this expression of pain and longing, that our children need not just their names, or their money, but also their love and their presence.

My love is a suitcase with no zipper.

You try to close it but it winds up back to square one.

I tell you to “come quick” to help,

Then you hold the sides while I try to stuff my longing back inside.

Even when it’s shut, it bulges. You can see what I’m trying to hide.

I hand it to you, gently, flinching as if you’re going to drop it.

I say “careful, it’s fragile” without ever telling you what’s inside.

I pack love and fear side by side, maybe I wanted them to spill.

I pre-break my heart just in case,

Then I leave it somewhere inside my suitcase.

Maybe if I break it, you won’t.

I convince myself love is temporary so it hurts less when it isn’t.

My face is a photocopy of someone who didn’t stay.

I inherited your features, not your presence.

I spent most of my life watching other kids happy, doing things

With their fathers, enjoying their childhood.

While all you really did was give me your DNA and call it fatherhood.

And now I’m stuck with a face that will always stay.

I don’t hate you,

No. I hate the way you echo in me.

In the past.

Every day, the mirror reminds me I’m a living receipt of love that didn’t last.

She sees you when she sees me sometimes, so I look away.

Your absence was the first thing I learned to carry.

You’re not a ghost. But you act like a shadow with a bank account.

And when I see my reflection,

I hear my inner child crying;

4-year-old me, by the door.

From that very day I knew my heart had been torn.

Author: Anonymous 14-year-old

@Theladysroom

St Andrew