I have a dad.
A dad who is a drunkard
a man who, when the bottle takes over,
says things he should never say
and does things he should never do.
I used to bash him for it,
angrily promising myself,
“I will never marry a man like you.”
And he would curse me in return,
half-drunk, half-hurt, saying,
“You’ll find one worse than me.”
Years passed.
And sometimes I wonder
if curses are not always spoken into existence,
but fears we carry quietly
until we recognize them
in someone we love.
Because I met a man.
And I fell for him
harder than I ever meant to.
But slowly,
I began noticing the resemblance.
At first, I thought he was nothing like my father.
He gave me comfort, security,
and reasons to believe in love.
Not in the way he protected me,
but in the way he hurt me.
Not in the love he gave,
but in the wounds he left behind.
A man who reminds me of my father
and suddenly,
the words I once spoke so confidently
echo somewhere deep inside me:
“I will never marry a man like you.”
Perhaps the most painful part
is realizing that sometimes
the thing we spend our lives running from
can find us again
in the arms of someone
we never expected to love.
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