Not Your Daughter

Written June 18, 2010

I paused for a moment,
and felt the same pang of doubt
and fear and restraint
that I would if I thought
you would ever read this.

You’ve done so much for me
for me to fail.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

So I’ll let you enjoy
all the superficial successes
I’ve reaped willingly.

I’ll make it through,
and you’ll never have to know:

that sometimes I resent
your expectations
and sometimes I hate
your incapacity to remember
anything I ever said.

These stupid trivialities
wouldn’t bother any sound human,
(let’s remember that you don’t know
that I’m not one of them)
but they serve to fuck me right up.

Do you understand
that forever rarely means
in life?

‘Cause I’ve been ready more than once
to walk away from everything forever.

Who the hell wants to quit
while they’re (at face value)
ahead?

No. Not me.
Not the perfect daughter
you worked so hard to raise.

So all these years
of feeling like shit
(when what I know—
that it’s all irrational—
never corresponds
to how I feel inside),
never has to be
yours to know.

It just scares me the most
that you’ll discover this,
and realize
I’m a failure.