My First Spoken Word Poem (To my Father)

Hello,
This is really good. I use to be that way. I made a plan to meet my biological one day, and he stood me up. So I know how you feel when it comes to this. Before we set it up to meet, we would talk on the phone, but now we don't even talk. If you ever want to talk I'm here. I call my husbands dad, daddy. Sometimes not having a daddy is a good thing, because they could be a dead beat, or a rapist.

I'm so sorry that you've gone through this. I can't begin to imagine what it might have been like. This poem just goes through it all and gets it out there, I can get a sense of your struggles and everything you went through. For the purpose of telling your story, this is absolutely amazing and you've written it perfectly. I don't really know what else to say, I have no nitpicks at all. Good luck with your future writing and everything.

Wow.

Let me just say, I've had only a partial share of the trouble you've gone through in your life, and I'm sure you, like me, do NOT at ALL COSTS enjoy the pity that people constantly throw at you. Me too. So I won't offer you pity for all that has happened in your life; I will simply offer you my respect, my dignity, and my extreme adoration for your excellent and valiant journey through life. I respect you as a person and I think you are absolutely inspirational.

However, I did find a few simple grammatical and/or spelling errors, so I'm going to state them in case you would like to correct them:

"[T]hey say,

every woman learns from her father what a good man is,

how a man should treat her.

I have had three people.

[T]hree men that I put on a pedestal in the course of my life,

[An] alcoholic ages 1-9

[A] drug addict ages 12-14

[An] inmate ages 16-present

They say,

because of this[,]

I am more likely to be screwed up,

to become an addict, a sociopath, depressed, and to self-harm.

I have not.

For years, my family told me[:]

“Your father doesn[']t acknowledge you, you are not his daughter. Your mother was a whore and he's just the only one she remembers.["]

I was a child

too small that it hurt me

too old that I knew it couldn't be true

but too in between to still be scared that it was possible.

So I sat at a computer,

After two years of torment from people who were [of] my blood.

I wrote him a letter, which up close

was complex, intricate, telling him all the good things I thought a father would want to [hear,]

but when you held the paper at arms length,

it simply asked, ["Why] not me[?] Why not love me?["]

He responded months later.

[He] ripped the letter in half[,] thinking it was junk mail

"I never said any of that.

I thought you called someone else [F]ather?"

But he was my true father. My blood father. Half of me. I found him a coward, it didn't matter who [I] called dad, he was the real McCoy, he was blood.

I held that letter like it was a map, a map to who I was.

It said: ["]Its not too late[;]

we can still have a daddy-daughter relationship.["]

I simply thought,

Time, it[']s too late.

Time[,] it[']s passed around[.]

[M]aybe one day[.]

[D]ay.

1st day of school[;]

1st day of high school[;]

graduation day[;]

family day[;]

18 birthdays[.]

[A]ll these days he has missed

because of a choice he made.

[T]he consequences were left to people.

Not him or I[,]

not you or me.

I was a little child,

hoping on [my] birthday cake

that if I was good enough,

one day, my father would come for me.

[L]ike what [D]isney taught me was a hero.

But the birthday cake has lost it[s] magical charm.

My father is an inmate,

but I guess so am I.

So scared to lose another person I call dad.

Too scared to fall

that I can't even try to fly.

I can count on one hand the letter's he's sent,

I can count on one finger, how many time[s] I've seen him.

He is my biological father, he is my DNA, but who,

[w]ho was I suppose[d] to call Daddy?"

I think these changes will improve the formality of your already-fantastic piece. I hope things get better for you - I hope they already are.

--- Sophia ( sbf1102 )

Oh my gosh...I'm so, so sorry, for what's happened in your life. This poem spoke to me, deeply, telling me a story. When I read this...I could feel pain. This was extremely powerful, and I saw no grammatical errors. You have amazing talent. If you are hurting at all, come speak to me. I wish you good fortune. I'm hoping you write more. Your writing is simply enchanting. You have earned a watcher, my friend.