Father and me

I always imagined
Us holding hands
In a garden
So much like Eden
Him and me
So close to one another
Seeing all there was to see
Rewriting our tainted history
He’d tell me all of those horror stories were just lies
And that he was really Jesus in disguise
And I was his little Mary
Our unconditional love
Would be the holy child
Together in the sun
On the grass
Free and wild

Instead he turned into the devil
And descended into hell
Never wanting anything to do with me
Never looking back to see
His now tainted child
Bleeding in a river of abuse
Neglect, repression, and misery
Father was such an elusive, abstract thing
A mythical creation
A horror story
Of a man turned to a mouse
He seemed big
Yet little
Insignificant malification
An unknown curse
Bestowed upon me
Nothing but a bum
An abomination
For my family
I was left in shame
With nothing but a dark shadow
To blame
For distant night terrors
Of him violating me
Coming and then leaving
Those fantasies were always so much like him
Staying far away from me