"My Father": a Spoken Word Poem

I don't like to write about personal things

Because I don't want to mix my personal with my poetry---

Because my poetry is beautiful, and my personal is pethectic

Because my personal needs therapy, and poetry needs people ---

I don't like it but I need it:

Because a part of me thinks that poetry is therapy, and poetry is personal---so that someone pathetic like me could reach people like you.

Ya, I know it's a mouthful.

I used to chew marbles in my mouth and practice mathematical proofs---so that when I talked very fast, which is how I normally talk, I could talk and be heard.

My father was going deaf.

At least, I think he was because he never understood me. I guess it's because I wasn't listening half the time and he wasn't hearing me all the time---

You see my mother was a halfway house between hell and home

And my father was the rock at the bottom of my skirt---

He was heavy, and dense, and he didn't know how to swim----

I guess that's why I liked the ocean so much; because when I would drown in it he couldn't chase after me.

It's not that I didn't love him---

I just didn't like him.

I inherited his brown eyes and tenacious tone of voice: I guess that explains why people don't like me either.

I would bite at the hand that feed,

And then ask for more,

And then I'd sink my teeth into flesh and bite down like a drill and I wouldn't let go until I tasted blood.

Blood connects us, but we don't connect

There isn't a spark and yet I'm "daddy's girl".

Everything on a silver platter--

I hate silver platters, because I can see my reflection in them:

And I look just like my father--

I look just like my father.

I'm sure he's a good man--

A good man--somewhere---to someone

And I know he means best
 

---                 

But sometimes your best isn't good enough

He tells me that,

He won't let me forget that,

I can NEVER forget that

Night when his fist went through my bedroom wall

And I left the gap there for two months

Until my friends started asking questions.

I liked the giant hole in my wall because

It was open and distorted:

I dream about it all the time.

My father tells me all about his dreams:

About how I'm Citizen Kane or Oprah:

I tell him about t dreams

Where I'm me and he asks me

"Why would you want to be you"

And---I don't know-- lady GaGa told me I was born this way?

My body is 90% water,

I guess that's why I cry so much.

I cry all the time.

In fact,

When Im done with this poem I think I'll cry some more--

Because it is too personal:

I know you don't want my autobiography 

This isn't about me

This is about my father

And I'm turning into my father

I'm turning into my father

Turning into my father

Into my father

My father

Father.

For someone who prides herself on being such an individual--- I'm just like my father....

I put my fist through the wall today.