You say you always loved me.
Sir…
Where?
Was it hiding in the nine-year silence?
Folded into the voicemails you never played back?
Tucked behind the half-hearted apologies
and “been busy” excuses
you recycled like old receipts?
Where was it?
Because I looked.
I looked in every birthday you missed.
Every emergency you didn’t return a call for.
Every simple request
you shrugged off like a coat you didn’t like the color of.
I looked for it—
in the mailbox
on Fridays,
under the stairs
when I cried without reason,
in the shape of clouds
on field trip days
when I had no lunch.
I searched my birthday cake
to see if maybe it was hiding
between the layers.
I listened for it
in the dial tone after every ring
you didn’t answer.
I checked my report cards
thinking maybe if I got enough A’s,
it would show up in the margins.
I opened every cheap toy
hoping it would whisper
he loves you, he’s just busy.
I even looked for it
in the mirror—
trying to find which part of my face
was too hard to love.
I checked my shoes,
maybe love had run off
with the laces.
I dug through the couch cushions,
where everything else we lost
seemed to end up.
I looked inside books
you never read to me,
under the Band-Aids
I learned to apply on my own.
On the day I graduated,
you actually showed up.
You said you were proud.
But I didn’t see it—
not in your face,
not in your eyes.
I even searched
the faces of other parents,
trying to find
what you must have meant.
So I checked the sky—
but all I saw
were clouds,
trying their best
not to rain.
You say you always loved me.
But love doesn’t vanish on Tuesdays
and reappear on Christmas with nothing to give
but a worn-out story
and a wallet full of impulse buys for people
who don’t even know your middle name.
---
Let’s be honest.
You loved the idea of being a father.
You just didn’t want to do it.
You wanted the title, not the tasks.
The fantasy, not the follow-through.
The “you look just like me,”
but not the “do you need anything today?”
---
Love is a verb.
Not a voicemail you ignore.
Not a check you write too late.
Not a memory you romanticize
to make yourself feel like you showed up.
You say you always loved me.
Sir…
Where?
Because the rent was due.
My stomach was empty.
And your name was not on the emergency contact list
because I knew better
than to expect a ghost
to hold my hand.