When I was 14 I read my birth certificate
for the first time in my entire life
I discovered that my father was born in Guatemala
He was five years older than my mother
And his name was Candido

When I proudly called myself Guatemalan for the first time

Wearing my fresh identity

Like a new sweater
My mother reminded me what the pacific ocean tasted like
in the middle of a tool shop

She looked at me with eyes wide
and said in a tone that made my chest freeze into icebergs
The only blood that runs through your veins
is that of a killer
She wasn’t lying

You see The only difference between my father and me
was who we fed the poison to
Him to his lover
Me to myself

We are both monsters

Afraid of ourselves

And the skeletons behind closet doors

That guide us like puppets

Father we can't rely on destruction forever

since that day in the tool shop
my mind’s been street racing
with the thought of certain gravitational pulls
pointing our genetic compasses in the same direction

The questions I would ask you if given the opportunity
fill my piggy bank head as I try to remember the last time
I saw you leave me

Father did your knuckles slamming
on the drywalls of her jawbone
give you the same rush
that a box cutter gave me
the first time I watched my wrist bleed
onto the pink bedspread
when I was only 13

I can only imagine your anxiety
whenever she left the house
Hiding the bruises on my own body
is hard enough as it is
The bruises you had made
were on a separate breathing canvas

Father did you think of us when you
were making her dinner with your own special recipe
Because when I tried to overdose
it was you I saw in the mirror

Father do prisons scare you
the way treatment centers scare me

I’ve been looking through mugshots online
searching for you
Hoping I won’t find you
in the orange uniform
Hoping I’ll find a picture of a changed man
Who's traded in clenched fists

For open palms

Hoping the only thing he leaves on a woman anymore is his respect

Father Do your other daughters know
about the way you love with your cyanide heart
Or am I your special little secret keeper

if  you saw the person I’ve become
Would you be proud to call me your daughter