I honestly don’t aspire to be a poet or a writer. I’m just a man who is finally starting to peel back all the layers around my heart and soul, the scars that only come from massive childhood traumas. When I was a kid, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said bodybuilder. I longed to be powerful because my whole childhood I was powerless to stop anything that was happening to me. In reality I never sat down to think about my future, I didn’t have that luxury, I needed to focus on survival. In a house where none of the dinner plates were for me I survived by stealing food from those plates, lifting some of the plastic wrap from each plate and taking a little bit of rice and maybe a little piece of whatever meat they had, careful to put the plastic back and even out the spot where I took food so it wouldn’t be obvious that I ate what was made for the people who were loved, unless I wanted to hear more words that had already destroyed myself love completely. I survived by trying to avoid my tormentor so that they wouldn’t let out their anger on me but trying and succeeding two different things so every single day I was broken down verbally, emotionally and sometimes physically. Sometimes I wished that I’d just get beat instead of having to hear everything that was said to me. So how could I dare think about my future when I was hoping that there would be no tomorrow? Since before I was even born, I’ve been unwanted, I had literally survived an attempted abortion, that fact was brought to my attention during one of the countless times where I was berated just for existing. I was a boy that was always abandoned and neglected, abused physically and sexually, broken mentally and emotionally, a boy that never got help for any of the traumas, so I grew up to become a broken man with broken thoughts, but now everything that I do and write is for my little princess, the most beautiful little girl in the world. The little girl that has the unique superpower to make me both smile and tear up every time I think about her. It’s because of her that I’m willing to finally let everything out, to hopefully have some of the things I write published so that I can save them for her so she can see that she was my inspiration to become a much better man, to become the person that I should’ve been from the beginning if I had just been given a chance. I want her to know how much I love her, how much I’m willing to do to make her love me before she grows up and inevitably ends disliking me, maybe even hating the fact that I’m her father but I hope that when/if she gets over those emotions, whether I’m still in this world or not, at least she’ll have my words to read. To know that I’m not a monster, that I’m much more than just the biggest mistake I made in my life. Hopefully this will also help others like me open up and release their pain and maybe help the rest of society to stop judging us and try to understand us. Why should my mental health issues be demonized while the world tries to be understanding of everyone else’s? I may be a “monster” in people’s eyes, but I know that I’m not. Monsters don’t miss their child like I do, they don’t kiss their baby’s pictures before going to bed like I do, they don’t lay in bed with their arm positioned like if their baby is laying with them like I do. Monsters don’t cry like I do. That all sounds very human to me. I am NOT a monster!
Waiting for Goodbye
By Diego Ayala
waiting for the day that you hate me
when you find out why I wasn’t there
the day that you stop being my baby
my life will become too much to bear
no more “I love you daddy!”
no more smiles directed at me
only looking at your pictures sadly
heartbroken for all of eternity
so when you visit I memorize your face
and record your voice in my mind
I try to come up with different ways
to make you love me before I’m left behind
I think of the milestones I’ve already missed
and all the years that have been wasted
looking at all your pictures that I’ve kissed
unable to count the tears that I’ve tasted
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