He is not my “Dad,” just simply my father

With his face pressed against mine, eyes closed, smiling,

He looks as if he loves me

And maybe he does, but I refuse to believe it

Because love doesn’t abuse and abandon

He is not my “Dad,” just simply my father,

Because anyone can be a father

A Rapist, a Murderer, a Dead-Beat, a Drug User, a Felon

And with my luck, I got an all-in-one deal

This is no sob story. Believe me

I do not believe in dwelling on things that have no importance to my life

He is not my “Dad,” just simply my father

A Dad is a man that one would  look up to and idolize

Not one that abandons his seed,

Leaving his four kids to struggle under two jobs

And leaving his high school sweetheart for prison fornication

Do not ask me to spell “dad” because it will come out as M-O-M

The only woman who worked like crazy to become successful

And succeeded, showing me I am more than just a double chin

I have perfect attendance,

But you never showed up for roll call

When my siblings and I called your name, you were screaming someone else’s

But I still don’t want to know the prison details

And I don’t mind that you were getting stoned upon my arrival

Because there is no diploma for ignorance

Just as there is no diploma for weakness

I do not have any “Daddy Issues”

So don’t you think for a second that I have a tenderness in my beating heart for you

Because how can you love someone who has only called once in seventeen years

And how can you love that someone who only called for money

And how can you love someone who “would have been a good dad”

But threw the opportunity on the ground and smothered it with a burning cigarette

Telling it to “just go to sleep” trying to make a mother be buried

A murderer can not be a Dad, just simply a father