THIS TIME, I DON’T THINK WE’RE COMING BACK
I have been running after you
for forty-two years.
Feet blistered, lungs torn,
heart split open
in the hope that if I bled enough,
screamed loud enough,
shattered myself small enough—
you might finally turn around.
But you never did.
You have been walking away forever,
slow, deliberate steps,
each one a betrayal stretched thin
so I could almost pretend
you hadn’t left.
Almost.
I threw myself against your silence
until my voice broke.
Kicked and clawed and begged
for scraps of fatherhood,
but all I held was smoke.
You were gone long before I ever admitted it—
a hollow shell in the shape of a man,
a ghost with my blood in his veins.
And still, I chased.
God help me, I chased.
Through the wreckage of birthdays,
through the ruins of trust,
through every slammed door
and empty chair
where you should have been.
I ran myself ragged
trying to catch what was never there.
All the while,
your hands—
the hands meant to protect,
to lift,
to hold—
were tied behind your back.
Not by rope.
Not by fate.
But by your own will.
You bound yourself
so you could say you were helpless.
So you could excuse the choice
to let me burn.
The blood I’ve spilled for you
is ocean-deep now.
Cuts upon cuts,
a body mapped in betrayals
that will never close.
And you?
You only watched me bleed,
then asked for more.
I could keep giving.
You could keep taking.
That is our history,
isn’t it?
But I am hollowed out,
emptied,
and there is nothing left
you can consume.
So hear this:
I will not run anymore.
I will not beg anymore.
I will not stand screaming at a locked door
that was never mine to open.
This time,
I don’t think we’re coming back.
This time,
I know we never will.
And the final cruelty—
the truth that splits me open—
is that you abandoned me first.
You left me decades ago,
and still, I wasted half a lifetime
trying to convince a ghost
to love me.
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