"Father's day? That's for people who have a father..."
Happy father's day! No. No, you don't get to hear those words for they are meant for a father, something you are not, something you haven't been for as long as I can remember. My sister had a father for some time, or so she says, as for me that almost resembles a myth. I'm sorry, I can't exactly tell you why you aren't a father because I don't know what truly having a father is like, but I know that this isn't it. You'll probably never realize how badly you messed me up. The idea of having two parents home everyday is inconceivable for me, such a foreign concept, it used to feel so weird when we all spent a week of vacation together because at the third day it already felt like too much time spent with you in a row. I used go to my friend's houses and seeing both their parents home would also make me equally uncomfortable. It was something so hard to wrap my brain around. Seeing people who were so close to their fathers, and then there I was thinking I didn't even knew where you were, where you slept or when I would see you again. I remember when the house phone would ring and someone would ask to speak to you, I'd say you weren't home and then they would ask when you'd be home, my answer used to be "I don't know" and truly I didn't, but after so many years of answering the same thing over and over, listening almost daily to that painful reminder that in fact you were never there, one day I simply stopped answering the phone, and to this day I still don't. Every time you called me, when I was little I'd ask you where you were, what you were doing and more but just like what happened with the house phone, as the years passed and I got older I stopped asking you those questions since I realized you didn't like to answer them and honestly over time I got more and more fearful of the answers to the point when I felt better not knowing anything at all. To cover for your absence you'd bring me gifts, didn't you ever learn that money can't buy happiness? Actually maybe you did learn it in the meantime since these days you never buy me gifts, not on my birthday, not even on Christmas. Heck, you even left on Christmas Eve two years ago, and last year, only bothered to show up on the 25th for lunch, once again assembling your gifts and leaving right afterwards. Perhaps I blame you too much, but I can't just lie and tell you that these things didn't scar me for life, why do you think I have abandonment issues? And don't even get me started on my trust issues... What the hell did you have in mind, talking on the phone with your mistress next to your small daughter? Seriously, how dumb did you think I was? Not that it mattered anyway... I already knew, I knew it years before when I foolishly decided to look at the screen of your phone and read a text to her that said that you were indecisive between choosing us or her. And god, I was just a child, barely 12 years old having my heart broken, all my childish delusions about happy endings, perfect love stories and happy families getting ripped apart. That was probably when my childhood ended too. Over the next years I grew up fast, but never had the courage to speak about it to anyone in my family until three years ago, even though I knew before that my sister was well aware of it such as my mother. You see, that was always the elephant in the room with us, something off limits to be discussed, so it would stay that way, continuously eating us alive as you did as you pleased. I'm sorry, actually maybe I shouldn't be sorry, but I can't forgive you. Not now, not ever I'm afraid. You broke me into pieces, and I'm still trying to find some of them to put back in place, but those pieces don't seem to fit anymore and I don't know what to do... But I can't treat you like a father, I can't call you today and say those words because you've hurt me so much and keep on doing so. And if I don't call, will you even notice?
"Father, father, tell me where have you been?
Its been hell not having you here
I've been missing you so bad
And you don't seem to care
When I go to sleep at night, you're not there
When I go to sleep at night, do you care?
Do you even miss us?
Your bottle's your mistress
I need to know, I need to know"
- in "A Trophy Father's Trophy Son" by Sleeping with Sirens
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