I hate you – for all you haven’t done.
All the acts the title was meant to convey,
All the lessons you were supposed to bestow
Upon your impressionable offspring every day.

A word from you,
A glance, a gesture,
Is enough to make me
Want you gone forever.

Because mostly, it was like you were never there.
Say all you want with the distance of hindsight,
About money you spent and hours you slaved
To keep roof overhead and food in belly,
But I was there too.
And I vividly remember all that you didn’t do.

There’d be no mourning,
No grief, no sadness
Just the calm
To fill the emptiness
You created and encouraged.

And about what you did do? What you did encourage?
I wish those aspects of self were so easy to vanquish,
As my naive wish that you were a better man.
Those demons I live with, ubiquitously,
The only thing you ever taught me.

Jessie Gutierrez