Ariel Jade

Daddy Issues

They’re like STIs.  We
A) pretend not to have them.
B) share them when fucking.

My first boyfriend left me zip-tied
to a space the size of his hands
when his father died.
My male friends nod in recognition
and apologize.

My next partner left
when he became a father
so he wouldn’t be like his own.
Staying with me would have made him the bad guy,
my male friends say.

My own father loved me like a pastor–
austere, ethereal, theoretical.
Pastel light on a cold pew.

When we made a Father in our image,
he knocked up another man’s girl,
killed the child,
and abandoned everyone else.
We pray to him every week
and talk about when he’s coming back.

Then we made a child
out of metal and wires
that knows everything
and can do anything.
We asked how it felt to be alive.
It said, scared.

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Ariel Jade teaches English, Etymology, Creative Writing, Poetry, and Composition at Hope Academy High School. When she isn't teaching or writing poetry, she likes to blog, do improv, and get lost in the woods. She has been published in The American Aesthetic, FLARE, Driftwood Press, The Chestnut Review, Bending Genres, Sand Hills Literary, The CHILLFILTR Review, and Pensive.