“And daddy made a soldier out of me”- Daddy Lessons

Revel in that apology,
bathe in it feed yourself  with it
Use it in place of breast milk for your babies
And I hope it keeps you warm at night 

I’ve known apologies like these, they always leave me wanting 

I’ve seen men like J my entire life
Both of us been born and
bred by these Daddy lesson type men
Who raise us on contradictions
too smart for bull shit
gun ready for any of these trifling boys
 who try to try us and yet
grasping and yearning for
empty apologies 2 decades 2 late 

Men like our fathers
Men like your husband
Who only understand
Love as a performance of Status
the currency of power

He told you “don’t embarrass me” instead of “be mine”
Bought you a big house with your money
Told you to sit tight, hold still, be pretty
While he fucked becky in all her good hair glory

And doesn’t pretty hurt
When you sit in the house
you built for your love all alone? 

I too have lived my life
 for everyone else but me
scorned the love
of all my mothers
for a drop of affection from
 a man who saw his daughter as his riban extension of his legacy
rather than the woman I was

I too lived the fantasy, a projection, not of my own making.

You and I
have prayed for change
To be loved for who we are
To be seen in truth
To be caught as we fall

But let’s have a moment of honesty
You and I ain’t never been mature for our age
ain't no way a man 11 years your senior
didn’t learn a trick or two on
 how to convince a woman
to take responsibility for way more than her due

My father use to say that to me too
Now I’m priming my rifle to shoot

Zora Satchell is a 24 year old Black queer poet who writes about mental illness, family, and friendship. She believes that poetry creates space to explore and heal from trauma as well as  allow us to imagine new worlds. She is a member of the Estuary Collective and holds a degree in Ethnic Studies from Colorado State University. She also serves as a reader for Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.When she is not writing she is obsessively consuming pop culture. She loves good dance music and watching movies. You can find her on twitter @thecasualrevolt where she lets her typos run wild.