Apparently, I have my father's eyes.

That makes it hard for my mother to even look at me.

Every time I inquire of the slightest information,

she feels betrayed, and questions my loyalty.

My kisses to her forehead are never convincing enough.

When I ask her what he looks like,

she points me towards a mirror,

but all I see is her staring back at me.

When I ask what he was like,

she tells me that he used her and that he’d 

never hesitate to do the same to me.

She’ll never understand the emptiness I feel

that keeps me up every night wondering

what my sibling look like, how they’ve grown,

if they know about me, or if they’d be proud to call me big sister.

There’s a terrible ache in my heart

that grows exceptionally more painful at the acceptance of not knowing.

For as long as I can remember,

I’ve always hated myself for whatever it was 

that I did to make my father not love me.

If I had the chance, I’d take back everything.

And there, I’d lie, contemplating possible

grounds under which a father should hate his first child:

I probably stared at him too long while he was feeding me.

Did I demolish a diaper in his hands? 

Did I bite his finger too hard as I teethed?

The overthinking churns my stomach,

and I feel like Judas himself,

biting the hand that feeds,

asking unanswerable questions.

Maybe she doesn’t want to remember.

Who am I to force the memories out of her?