How to Write of Disappointment
A reflection on cardiac exhaustion
How to write of disappointment
When I have lived with it for so long
My mind tells me that there isn’t anything special
To say on paper
How to put words to the thought
Of every time I had to fill in the blanks
Before realizing that I would never be fully able
To finish the canvas you stopped painting halfway through
It wasn’t and isn’t my job to capture the details you were too lazy to draw
How to spell apathy
Without registering that 5/6ths of the word is your surname
And understanding that — to some extent —
You are the human embodiment of overcompensated promises without enough delivery
How to undo from my memory
My association of red dresses with you
Because you bought me one out of guilt in May
After greeting my belly with your belt so often I thought my period
Was my body internally bleeding
Asking for all the times I felt uncomfortable wearing red on Valentine’s day
How to be a normal human being
That doesn’t think of my dreams as out of reach
Out of spite for every time you sat me by your side and allowed me to aspire
I’d whisper to my subconscious, I want to be an astronaut-woman-pilot-engineer-mechanic
Before you’d tell me that it was a tad bit inappropriate to exist as anything not imagined in your 20-year life plan for me
How to celebrate Christmas and Easter
Free from the need to wake up in the middle of the night
To see if you left before saying goodbye
Without the comprehension that seeing you as often as I saw Santa Claus or Jesus was atypical
And that the Casio watch you got me was never
Much compensation for you being unapologetically absent for a majority of the year
The dictionary defines indifference
As the lack of interest, concern, or sympathy
But I think there is more to its meaning than simply not caring
It is the body’s defense mechanism
After caring so much, it kills you on the inside
So your heart says no more
And the fires that once blossomed turn into embers
The noise and bustle in the head become emptiness
And now my heart no longer beats, no longer falters
When I say the word, Father.