Jacks Mama

I needed you. I needed you to be the hero that you were in my heart and mind. I needed you to be the man that I bragged about. The man that I screamed until I couldn’t breathe defending. I was abused. Mentally, sexually, emotionally. I needed my hero. I didn’t know how to put things into words, I didn’t know how to tell you what was happening. I was ashamed. I was scared. What if I made it worse for my mom or my sisters? I wanted nothing more, even as a little girl, than to protect those people. They needed you too, dad. Here we all are. Years later. You, oblivious to our torment....Us, suffering, trying to find out how to succeed in life when we were taught that we were failures. We are trying to learn how to be happy...how to function with some sort or normalcy. I still need you now...I need you stop getting joy out of causing me to panic. I need you stop finding it funny when my cheeks turn red, and my heart pounds. I need you to stop calling me weak or sensitive and understand the hell I was in for my entire childhood. I want you to understand but I don’t know how to do that. I want you to stop letting politics decide how much you love your children. I just need you to be a dad. I want to sit with you and not fight about anything. I want to talk about life without feeling like you hate every decision I have made. I am begging you to be the man that hung my moon and stars and got me through the years of hell. I am begging you to love us for who we are.

Signed,