13

You sit atop your crumbling throne, Cloaked in lies you call "protection," Twisting love into a leash, And calling theft a mother’s correction.

You hold my daughter like a prize— Not yours to win, yet tightly kept. You speak of safety with a smile, While every truth you’ve sworn has wept.

You carved me out like I was void, Erased the part that makes her whole. But blood remembers, hearts don’t lie, And time will call the final toll.

Did you think she'd never ask Why half her sky was shuttered black? Why voices dimmed when she came near, Why Daddy never answered back?

You play the martyr, saint in white, But hide the blade behind your gown. I see you for the cage you are— A gilded trap in a rotting crown.

But I will not go quietly. My silence isn’t shame, it’s war. I love her more than you can scheme— And I’m not knocking at your door.

I’m carving truth into the stone, I’m building bridges she will find. And when your grip begins to slip, She’ll hear my voice inside her mind.

Love, Dad

I do not see your face these days— Not in the way I wish I could. But in my mind, you still remain As bright as dawn in shadowed wood.

I miss the sound you used to make, The tiny laugh, the honest tears. And though you're far beyond my reach, You're not beyond my love, my dear.

The world has drawn a line, a wall, And silence now is what I hear. But still I talk to you at night, And whisper, “Pelaiah, I’m near.”

You did not choose this bitter space, This hollow stretch of missing years. But know this truth, beneath the ache: My love has never disappeared.

I carry you like sacred flame, No court can dim, no time erase. You are my heart, and just the same, You live in every empty place.

If one day soon or far you read These lines I scrawled beneath the moon, Know this, my girl: I never left. And I have prayed we'd reunite soon.