Leonidas

I was an idealistic, naive, clumsy, slow, and somewhat stupid child. I don't blame you for getting frustrated when I simply didn't understand what you were asking of me. I don't blame you for leaving when my upbringing became uncomfortable. I blame you for allowing me to have you around and yet... never allowing me to be with you in peace. I blame you for turning every attempt at conversation into a scolding, a sermon in which you addressed everything from my stupidity to the absurdity of my tastes, in which you criticized my personality and my very being with a conviction and confidence that made me, at times, believe you were right. I blame you for making me feel comfortable in the insecurity and fear of your rejection and your reaction. And I thank you for the day you freed me from your home, even though I would later have to struggle and cry for all the things I lost, for all the lessons I didn't receive, and for how, with your decision, you put me within reach of the worst people I've ever known—people I'll speak of in other poems, and whose names burn on my skin with the With the same intensity as yours, I didn't hate you, because I can't, because you're still my father and my treacherous mind keeps fabricating happy memories that I know don't exist, but I don't love you either, because you never knew who I was, because I knew that if you criticized so much the artificial personality I fabricated to please you, you would tear apart my true self... and that limbo in your memory that now inhabits my chest is what weighs most heavily on me 4 months after you kicked me out of my home....