I needed you...

I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am. Though it ails me to expose this disparity I must press boldly forth to divulge the pains that brood deep within my heart. The object of my affliction is someone I hold dear; someone who in all his stature has belittled his repute through negligence, unbeknown. Years have I felt the absence of the love I ought deserve. Is it the vitals that compose me that make me less worthy than my male counterparts? Have I no purpose than to shadow the ball that knowingly is chained to domestic affairs. That life is too dull and repetitious to be long endured, though without doubt, capability is not in question.  Am I but an empty frame? Do I not possess beauty worth pausing to admire or qualities that reflect a masterpiece? Why then am I repulsed? Perhaps, repulsed is too stringent a word to describe the indifference I am shown.


This indifference came as dew upon a fertile grass, for when I was a child your eyes beheld me as gently as your arms, but a blossom changed your grasp forevermore. Think not that I have forgotten the days before my womb did shed. Cherished deep within the hold of my mind are your labors that  pushed the hands of time beyond duty to share and expose the happiness life contained. When fear took flight as the cycle swayed, it was your arms that reached to steady me. When of age the boys became and the hunt grew as a fever, pigeons of mud became our evening game. When scorned and outcast by my team, it was your smile from the crowded lines that  made my heart play on. Language was not necessary to bind our souls and pass along the message that each was valued beyond measure. It has always been your presense , your gentle touch, your crooked smirk that allowed me to see the words that never flowed. But as if the hands of time spun out of your control, those gestures of affection emaciated leaving me longing for something to replace the joy they once inspired.

Here is where my bitterness steeps. Like a stream that babbles on, whispering tales of the heart - kind, quiet, soothing, gleeful - my life has bubbled on til suddenly, as though some obstruction was jammed forth, the stream struck a melancholy tune, like the voice of a child that was spending infancy without playfulness and knew not how to be merry among sadness and events of dismal hue. I knew this to be not true. My childhood possesed many a reason to be loquacious. And when joy did find itself hidden beneath the surface, it was always your strong reach that pulled it afloat. Now, unbeknownst to me, there was no saftey net coming to the depths of which abandonement had plunged love. I asked myself, "How now are you not concerned with my hearts happiness for the rest of time? How can you send me on quest for something I never saught to find?"

Scared, I followed nature's course downstream only to be entrapped by one pseudo assurance after another. I felt as garbage being thrashed about the turbulent current, pausing briefly along jagged rocks before being thrust into the grasp of another. Expended beyond what good faith could redeem, nature at last delivered me ashore. Though outwardly exposed, the sun was powerless to penetrate the shame that dwelled deep in the shadows of my being. Whenst I found the courage to open my eyes, the sourroundings mirrored the tangled moral forest of my heart. Then I saw it, above the treetops, the net that had been held from my grasp. I cursed it and yet longed for it in the same breath. I knew in that moment that if a language of words had not been taboo all the offense could have been spared.

My plea is this. Do not abandon me to the world of men; do not let go of my hand without questioning to whom will grasp it hence; do not assume you are no longer of great necessity. For a father's love is the first a daughter's heart does trust and til the sun doesth not rise she'll need to be assured. Though I be a woman, I pray thee never again neglect thee as a daughter. I need you now as suredly as I needed you when my existence was conceived. You have taught me to be diligent in character, organized in mind and strong in duty. There is not a day that passes that I do not look to you for guidance. Though it be true that my gender role closer resembles that of my mother, it is your influence that lays the foundation to building my self-love and confidence. Long have I toiled to appease you and yet I still wait to have your blessing. I want to hear that the work I do, the challenges I conquer, and the adventures I pursue fill you with pride. Most desperately I want you to protect my heart from accumulating losses that may go ungrieved and lead to despair without restoration. My prayer now is that my father would reach out his hands once more to embrace his tremulous child and release the words that have since accumulated a musty fragrance. And that he would realize that heroism is not something a father must earn but is esteemed as such from the moment he has a daughter.