What If ....Father?

 What if I didn’t have your eyes,
Your face, that smile,
would I still be despised

What if I was born a boy,
would you have left me
 hungry on the cold kitchen floor

What if my smile wasn’t so bright,
when I saw you late at night

What if my brown eyes, didn’t gleam with unshed tears,
when you forgot a promise, once again

What if I didn’t see, that hand raised against a woman,
who cleaned and slaved, for a love she never had as a daughter

What if I was one of your demons, when trapped
in the bends, I wouldn’t have been ignored,
 like so many bills

What if, that one time you came, I didn’t refused,
to sit on your lap, so you could kiss my face,
when, unkempt, you smelled of stale cigarettes,
booze and cheap sex

What if you had called once, to see if I had enough
instead of drowning your demons, in gin

What if I didn’t judge every man, by the sins
 of an abusive absent father
Perhaps, then, love would win

What if I didn’t ignore the drunk on the corner
begging for a dollar
from a daughter he didn’t recognize

And what if, before you died,
you acknowledge
You weren’t the father
 this daughter
should have had

Safire
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