You hardly read to me
She always did
She spoke to me
Making me feel wanted, and loved
She asked why you were always busy
You said it was to make my life comfortable
And that when I arrived, you’d be there
My underdeveloped heart gladdened
It filled with expectations of seeing you
I just couldn’t wait
The doctors pronounced me premature
For I was in a hurry to see you
I was overwhelmed with joy as I heard your gruff voice
For I knew you were the one
The one in whose arms I’d mature
I loved my first encounter with you
You were so scared to hold me
Thinking you’d damage my developing bones
I remembered how she giggled
When you delicately wrapped your arms around me
I especially loved you referring to me as junior
And I looked forward to spending my life with you, senior
But, it’s been 19 long, lonely years since…
Accumulating the sporadic times I spent with you
Would not even amount to two years
What went wrong, daddy?
What went wrong?
Anytime she reminded you to spend time with me
You asked her of her existence
But she needed you too
To complement her existence
And anytime I cried for you
You told me to look forward to our quality times
Could you explain the “quality time”, for I know not what it
is
Was it the 4 weekly minutes of you asking “how are you?”
Or my formative years spent in the midst of strangers
Your guidance was a desire I craved
I needed you to show me the way
To spank me anytime I misbehaved
And to laugh even though my jokes were dry
I needed to know about men from a man
Those dreams at night
My sticky pajamas in the morn
Those eternal, tormenting emotions
The angst, the lust, those youthful desires
She tried, but she didn’t really understand
You understood, but you didn’t really try
I guess to you, I wasn’t important enough
I might sound ungrateful
If so, please pardon me
Cos I am truly grateful for all you did
Your money sent me to the best nursery school
But I wasn’t nursed to my satisfaction
You provided me the finest basic education
But my basic desire was for you
Then you locked me up in your former senior high school
Leaving me with that obnoxious “school father”
You even bought me trained home teachers
But my most important teacher should have been you
After I graduated top of my class
You image was absent from my graduation pictures
I am educated and there is emptiness in me
I can’t boast about my dad, for I know not who he is
I know you aided in my birth but I know not who you are
I doubt you can hear me say all these
But I wish you could hear me say all these
I wish snippets of my voice will drift into your fading
consciousness
My heart aches as I see all those tubes plugged into you
The breath in me drains as I feel your cold, lifeless hands
in mine
Oh, how I wish I could comfort myself by reminiscing about
our happy times!
Alas, I find no memories
I want to scream at you for depriving me of your love
But I wish I could give a part of me to see you arise
I wish I could have just one extra day with you
I love you dad; I think I do
But I miss you more than the opportunity I had to love
PS: This is a plea to all guys to consider the
responsibility of being a father before impregnating anyone. And to those that
have children: please, be a responsible and loving father. Do not deprive them
of your love which essentially involves the time you spend with them.
