untitled (a testimony)

i think i was........five
bursting with innocence and life
when he asked my mother to be his wife
excitement grew, at the thought of forming a family
ya see, my father left when i was only a baby.
(he wasn't ready for me, yet?)

on her wedding day, dressed in my flower dress
friends and family decked in their sunday best
there to witness, the joining of two souls
or what should be i guess
there was such a thing as destiny
or so i believed.

they said their "I do's", i ran down the aisle
happiness showing on the face of an innocent child
then came the house, the pets, a family conceived
"forever I do" were words meant to deceive,
a child.

naive.

so long ago,
hard to remember the beginning
i remember playing, i remember swaying
his musical side intrigued me
like a mirror, looking at him hoping to see me reflected
music became something we shared, our song, me and he.

always reminded i had a father
(a father who loved me just as unconditionally)
and a daddy.
hmmm, not sure what that made me, no complaints
i know some who had neither, i was blessed i figure.

those terrible teens, reared their ugly head
tensions growing, brewing my homestead
i grew distant, guess i wasn't in favour of his doctrines
started to compare the differences between my father and him,
my daddy.

i loved him.....

....like we were kin
but i just couldn't understand how this man i'd looked up to for so long suddenly became a foreign being,
to me.

"ef you knew de tings you fada put you mudda through, you wud neva be up unda he so!"
still, i couldn't let go, i was drawn.....pulled......to my father.
can anyone understand that feeling?

confused.

always in the middle, it felt sometimes
a father and daddy with two different disciplines
the questions i started to ask only made me more unglued
and the tensions that grew mum couldn't diffuse.

by the time he left we were barely speaking
i felt as though.......in the pit of my stomach.....i hated him!
yet still when she told me he would never be coming back
i mourned like a mother at a graveside over a child, i cried
he was like the leader of our pack

bittersweet memories.

it took him leaving,
to realize how much i'd miss him
cause he was there for me from day one
18 years later we were back were we'd begun
the two of us, me and my mum.

those were sad times.

years later,
he's remarried
beautiful wife, two loving sons
without me?

with me.

he has never let go
his leaving preceded our growth
i believe this is how we were meant to sow
through it all he's never stopped loving me
and ye, i must admit, i still call him daddy
now, finally, i get to be a big sister.
sorta.

this is my testimony.