Poeaxtry's Prism

Spell. Stone. & Sparks that Ignite Change

Tag: abandonment trauma

  • A Letter I will never send.

    A Letter I will never send.

    Personality:

    A poem about how somethings you do not grow out of.

    I am 33 

    Ohhhh no I am a grown man 

    & I never stopped writing poetry 

    about how much 

    My god damn dad sucks.

    Sorry kids sometimes 

    It’s just the way it is. 

    Some of us are cool enough 

    to keep the angst as our 

    entire personality. 

    The letter:

    Jake ,

    I’ve spent a lifetime waiting for you. Waiting on moms or grandmas porch until one of the two of them would no longer let me wait. Friday nights, dressed and ready, because you said you were coming. Then Saturday. Then Sunday. The same cycle of hope and disappointment that carved itself into my developing brain until doctors gave it a name: Borderline Personality Disorder. A condition born from abandonment between ages 5-17. A condition you created on your own with every promise broken.

    What’s my middle name? My second middle name? When’s my birthday? How old am I? What city do I live in? These aren’t trick questions – they’re the most basic facts about your child that you’ve never bothered to hold onto.

    I remember who wasn’t there when I broke bones, hit my first grand-slam, every time I was sick or sad. I remember who didn’t answer calls for days. I remember throwing fits, screaming and crying for you while my mother held me. I remember being used as your detective, held up to ex-girlfriends’ windows to report back who was inside. I remember your siblings giving me presents “from you” – but if they were truly from you, why didn’t you come too?

    Don’t forget Todd was always a savage – that’s why he caught you following him and mom and you stood on the bar and told everyone you were a pussy so you didn’t take that loss too” He always was my dad and it wasn’t ever you. And that’s why I called you dad 2 to your face, and there was nothing you could do.

    I remember a magistrate threatening my mom with jail if she didn’t get me to you, and I agreed because I didn’t want to hurt her. But at your house, I was always an outcast. I remember going to side jobs with you when I could because your wife was abusing me. I remember crying for you so many times, wrecking my mom’s house because I couldn’t understand: why didn’t you want a relationship with me like you had with your other kids?

    You had court-ordered visitation days set -up by you and still didn’t show up. That isn’t my mother’s fault. Whatever my mother did to you should have had no effect on your relationship with me. Yet you’ve spent years trying to blame her, as if I haven’t been an adult making my own choices for the last 14 years.

    I smoked weed in high school and you treated me like I was on crack, but when Matthew did the same thing, you had no problem with it. I was diagnosed with ADHD and you said it was “all BS” and my mom was crazy, but when Jacob had the same diagnosis, you accepted it without question.

    Remember when I had nowhere to go with your almost 2-year-old grandson? You told me it was “time to stretch my wings and leave the nest.” So at 18, a high school dropout with no license and no help, I gave up my rights to my son. Yet somehow Jason still lives with you and Jessica (with her kids) too? I guess even they trump me and your grandkid.

    I’ve watched you effortlessly try for everyone but me. I’ve seen your step-daughter share posts about what an awesome father you are to her. I’ve watched you accept your step-kids with open arms while shutting the door on me. What was wrong with me that made me so unwelcome when everyone else found a place in your life?

    You let your wife beat me . You let my step-cousin sexually assault me on Christmas Eve. You bribed me with car rides because you knew I just wanted to spend time with you, then you’d disappear for months.

    I didn’t choose you to be my dad, but you chose to have me. If you didn’t want the responsibility, you should have signed your rights away instead of keeping me hanging on, hoping you’d eventually show up consistently. You poked a whole in a condom for all of this?

    I don’t want your money. I don’t want your excuses. I don’t even want your apology anymore. What I wanted was a father who showed up, who knew me, who protected me, who made me feel like I mattered as much as your other children.

    That ship has sailed. I got to meet and know the parent who was there for me. I don’t have any desire to be around a deadbeat who doesn’t even know what city I live in.

    One day you might regret never actually knowing me. Or maybe you won’t. Either way, I’m done waiting by the window.

    Your oldest son.

    Oh yea and dad P.S.

    I’d let you go to the worst nursing home in the world before I ever thought to help you.

    Oldest son:

    A poem about how one transgender man grew up to be the man he wished would have raised him, but own his own.

    Meanwhile, I am thirty three,

    One would assume it’s about time I get over my chronic case of 

    Teenage angst. 

    I am not even sure if I  could 

    Call it that, anymore. 

    Pick your face up off the floor 

    Your oldest so became a man

    And 

    You never had to hold my hand 

    I wasn’t potty training until  9 

    You never had to lie about my 

    Age to hide the statutory 

    Rape

    But

    I would say that I hate you 

    add I do 

    Repeat that pretty frequently

    It’s easier than explaining the

    Nothingness I feel  when it

    Comes to you

     

    I  won’t let anymore of the  

    Daughter you never got to knows

    Tears fall out of your oldest 

    sons eyes

    They aren’t mine to cry. 

    In high school I struggled 

    When the numb feeling would 

    Overcome me 

    And everything. 

    For once I feel nothing, and I don’t

    Want to feel anything. 

    It’s comforting. 

    Back then

    I did not yet discover 

    My brain had the ick 

    And it was you that 

    Made me 

    S

    I

    C

    K

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  • The Longest Day, The Quietest Moment

    The Longest Day, The Quietest Moment

    Solstice

    There’s something ironic about the Solstice being the brightest, longest day of the year. All that sunlight and somehow, my most important truths came in the quiet. Not in the light. Not in celebration. Not even in ritual. Just in the soft, calm knowing that came after decades of waiting.

    I used to wait on the porch every other weekend, little backpack packed. Notebooks and a toothbrush. Maybe a toy I’d bring with me to his place. Except he never came. Or well to be honest he usually didn’t come. He came sometimes. It was as if he’d appear once in a blue moon. He seemed to come when he thought my hope would shrivel and I would stop waiting if he didn’t.

    That was the pattern.

    Calls full of promises.

    Nothing to follow through.

    Excuses. Delays. Silence.

    Years of silence. With minimal visits a year even if he scheduled them all.

    Still Child Me Waited & Waited

    But I still waited, every other weekend like clockwork. It became part of my rhythm, part of the structure that shaped me. I didn’t realize until recently that I’d started seeing everyone through that same lens. I treated every new connection like it was just another promise waiting to be broken. Another porch. Another weekend. Another packed bag that never got carried to the car.

    But Lately

    It’s only lately, maybe in this strange stillness, that I’ve realized not everyone is him. Not every missed message is abandonment. Not every “I’m here for you” is a lie.

    Some people stay. Some people show up. Some people are not him.

    And I’ve stood by my no contact boundary. For 2 years now mostly. That was not easy. There’s guilt in that kind of distance. But there’s also peace. And maybe peace is the true Solstice gift. It’s the kind that comes from holding your own sunlight instead of chasing scraps of someone else’s.

    Two years ago, he commented on something I’d posted about my mom. He acted like he was still a presence. It seemed like he had any place in my life or my grief. This man doesn’t even know my birthday. My address. Where I live. Who I am. He knows a version of me that’s long dead. The child on the porch. Not the person I am now.

    Should Have Just Stayed No Contact

    So I messaged him.

    The message was long, so long you had to click to expand it in iMessages. I told him the truth. I laid it out. The damage. The broken trust. The years of absence. How his words mean nothing anymore because he never once followed through. I wasn’t cruel, just honest. Direct. Clear.

    He replied with a single period.

    Just a dot.

    Like all that truth didn’t even deserve words.

    A year later, I tried again. Softer this time. Not because I thought it would change anything, but because I needed to release it from me. I needed to say that this wasn’t my job to fix. That I was the child. That I had done enough.

    Another long message. Another scroll.

    He replied with a thumbs up.

    That was it.

    And somehow, those two hollow responses made everything quieter. Like, finally quiet. Not the kind of quiet you sit in while waiting . The kind that comes when you stop waiting. When you stop leaving the porch light on. When you let the bag go unpacked. When you choose to stop hoping for something you know won’t ever come.

    That was my Solstice.

    Not a ritual. Not a hike. Not a spell.

    Just a quiet knowing:

    He is who he is.

    And I am no longer the child waiting for him to change.

    I may share those messages someday. This is not to expose him. It is to show what emotional closure looks like when it’s one-sided. What it means to hold truth when no one ever mirrors it back. What it means to free yourself from the trap of obligation and choose healing instead.

    The sun is highest now.

    And I’ve never felt more clear.

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  • Carrying the Unspoken: A Trans Man’s Journal on Loss, Love, and Survival

    Carrying the Unspoken: A Trans Man’s Journal on Loss, Love, and Survival

    “I still carry the sound of your promises that never made it past your teeth.”

    -Axton N.O. Mitchell

    Hi Jake.

    I know I swore I let go of all this shit.
    All of you.
    But I still carry the sound of promises that never made it past your teeth.

    Dad
    the disappearing act that always came with excuses,
    the birthdays you ghosted like it was a tradition.
    The ball games, the plays, the sick days, you’d call for them all big or small.
    I carry the echo of your words:
    I’ll be there this time.
    You never were.

    I miss you Momma!

    I carry the way Mom said my name
    right before everything stopped.
    Eight days before I turned 30, my sisters both not even 21. She stopped existing in a world that never deserved her.
    I still talk to her like she can hear me.
    They did teach us energy gets replaced it never leaves.
    Maybe that’s the part I haven’t let go of.
    I doubt I have let go of much but her physically.
    Maybe that’s the part I never should let go.
    I won’t. I can’t let more of her slip away. She falls through the cracks between my fingers as I pretend. I was definitely not crying again. Not that anyone asked.

    I’m the Problem, so They must be the Reason.

    I carry the weight of being told I make people miserable,
    like I’m a curse wrapped in skin.
    The way an ex said I’d ruin everything I touched the opposite of that king Midas, I think. I don’t remember, but as a kid, my mom would read me a book. It was about a king who turned everything to gold.


    As well as other Ex’s and other things they said they never meant to say… but still said.
    Anyway, for a while, I believed them.
    Because when you hear it often enough,
    it doesn’t sound like abuse anymore.
    It sounds like proof.

    The Demons they Left behind

    And honestly, if I’m being real, it still does when the demon bpd shows his ass. It’s way further apart than it was known to be in history but I’m still clearly sore in many places. I don’t like to talk directly about that shit.
    It’s hard when the person you talked to the only one is located on your shelf in an urn. What a joke.
    The weight of all this is sometimes enough to drown me, I fear.

    Those People who left When Axton stopped Hiding


    The people who said they loved me
    until I came-out, found me, or loved me.
    I chose a name that fit, and they couldn’t try to call me it.
    I started to look like someone they hadn’t imagined. So they didn’t come around and get used to me as I changed. They decided it was better to walk away.


    I carry the silence that followed coming out,
    the way their love had fine print and conditions. That I didn’t see until I bled through it, of fucking course.
    They loved the version of me I had to bury.
    But I didn’t die with her, she was always a shield for a boy too weak to exist. You just knew him by a different name and set of pronouns.


    I became something more. I was lonelier at first. Fresh out of my shell. I found my tribe, and the more, I grow the louder I am about equality for everyone.
    That scares them,
    so, it is theirs to hold.

    I’ve got enough of my own weight to carry.
    And I do.
    Every damn day. I carry all the things I said I had burned.
    The truth is I just folded them up,
    pressed them behind my ribs like a sad collection.
    I still read those letters sometimes.
    They still sting.
    And I can’t do a thing to stop them from opening.

    “Every damn day, I carry all the things I said I had burned. I still read those letters sometimes.”

    -Axton N.O. Mitchell

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