Dad

You do not care what I feel,

what I am,

what I think.

You do not know me.

To you, I am only another person,
another face passing through
the margins of your life.

Sometimes I see myself
as an image of you.

I take no pride in that.

But I am not like you.

I do not hate the world
the way you do.

I do not turn every wound
into a reason to bleed.

I die for what I believe,
whether it matters or not,
whether anyone remembers
or not.

You will never love me
for what I am.

Perhaps because he is what I am,
and she because she is him—

everything because it is nothing,
nothing because it still longs
to be something.

I do not love you.

Or perhaps I do.

I love you because I must,
the way one loves a scar,
the way one loves a house
already falling apart.

Because just as you cannot love me,

I cannot love you.

And yet,

here we remain—

two reflections
failing to recognize themselves
in the same broken mirror.