Declaration Of (My) Independence (From You) Poem by Tiffany Rose Moczydlowski

You have never been a Father
Don't claim that you have
You just happened to
Contributed some of my
Genetic codes, about half.
Your image conjures no thoughts
Of love, just scars of the past.

Addicts shooting up heroin and smoking crack,
You amongst the bunch.
Trying to replace my mother with one.
Melanie.... I hated her laugh.
And her moans in the next room.
Driving a Grand Cherokee up a mountain,
The angle with the ground no less than 80 degrees.
When finally released
I lost balance on Mt. Tom's edge.
Encouraging me to take home
A sharp, rusted nail to play with.
My toe half cut off
From that botched construction project,
That illegal shed.
My arm, now a different hue,
From a 3rd degree burn,
When denied the hospital by you
When it was your inability to watch a two-year-old
Was the cause of it.
My mother flying
across my room,
Hitting the wall with a sickening sound.
All she did was bake a chocolate cake
The I'd wanted
For my 8th birthday that afternoon.
Arguing with Mom
Because you wanted your daughters
To help you take a chainsaw to a
Tree that had snapped and fell
On an electricity line, still alive, outside.
Stalking my family,
Your army crawl up to my window.
Only feeling somewhat safe with my brother home,
Knowing that he'd defend me,
But fearing your crazy strength.
Almost killing us with carbon monoxide,
Leaking from a busted furnace
That you refused to fix,
Despite your overabundance of wealth.
Mom dying once and coming back
Even though the fireman says
Our house had enough poison
To forever silence 10 elephants,
The detector still wailing
An acre away.
Telling me to do things in school
To get me friends,
Taking advantage of my autism
And social awkwardness
To laugh at me as I come home crying.
Beat up by other kids and mentally tormented
For being a freak.
Letting me befriend the old neighbor
Who mowed the lawn at midnight in his underwear.
Who'd invite me into his basement
To play with his model train set.
Who'd fiercely hit on Mom
And buy us tons of gifts.
Not caring when his wife
Almost killed Heather with her car.
Condemning our house
Ordering us out on Christmas Eve.
Trying to force us out on the street.
Would've succeeded if Uncle Mike
Hadn't given us his apartment
And left all there he had.
Trying to our love and forgiveness,
Classic literature for birthdays
Along with handmade Peruvian whistles
Shaped like frogs.
iPods one Christmas.
The next a keyboard, an amp,
And a '63 sunburst Ibanez.
You forgot Heather and Stephie that year.
A Fairly OddParents coloring book
From Barnes & Noble.
I only used your guilt gift that day as I watched
The cops drag you off with relief.
But you keep
Following us from town
To town.
To town.
Us, just trying to escape you.
Screams reverberating in my mind
My mother's pleas and shrieks and cries
While you defiled her with
Your words and body.
The broken bones and bruises
That the origins Mom could never hide.
The fantasies you'd spin and yell in your sleep,
All of the horrific murder plots your head would dream
Even insane asylums kicking you out
Unable to deal with you.
Strangling a random man in a bar,
Almost to death,
Just for glancing at you,
Then coming home
With those blank, emotionless eyes
That screamed your mental state.
Only taking meds in jail
When forced to with others' hands
Shoving pills down your throat.
Coming home and seeming normal
Only to slip back in
To that perpetual psychotic episode.
Manic depressive,
With schizophrenic
And psychotic tendencies.
Multiple Personality Disorder.
Bipolar Level 4.
Throwing desks at judges
Chairs at secretaries
While in court
Just because we don't want
To see you.
Only restrained by 10 cops,
Even then just barely.

I thank the universe
For being brought away from you.
Yet you claim us to be ''yours''
For you want to ''have parental rights? ''
To force us to see you,
Giving us only sleepless nights?
You attack the ones I actually cherish
And expect me for you to care?
I used to but
No, just forget it, you insane individual.
You're barely a person.
You've never been a man,
Least of all a Dad.