A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

I have to keep reminding myself that you are not your father. 
In so many ways.  
You’re but a child, 
but even that is hard to remember when your insight far surpasses his. 
You love me (I think)
or at least, you’d still learning how.
He was never interesting in learning.
But even when you’re screaming at me that you hate me, that I don’t deserve respect, 
I still love you, and I think, maybe you still love me. 
I honestly don’t think he ever did.

You are not your father, 
even when you look like him, sound like him, breathe like him.
Constant sympathetic activation.
I thought I’d escaped that when I escaped him — 
I chose flight, without realising I could not outrun the fight. 
	(I’ve not had even the echo of regret.  I’d leave again a thousand times over. 
	I remember the relief, the way I could breathe. 
	I remember how the sun seemed to peak over the horizon,
	how the light at the end of the tunnel no longer seemed wishful hallucination.)
But now, the same tones of disdain shade your face. 
Did he teach you the workings of gas lamps, even if only by example?

Maybe I’m the padded room 
and you feel safe to rage against my walls until exhaustion takes you, 
trusting that neither of us will take irreparable damage. 
Thing is, I am taking that damage. 
I am floor boards worn thin by incessant pacing. 
I am a parchment whose creases begin to tear, from being folded and unfolded repeatedly.
I am a candle burning low, wax puddled where hope once stood proudly.
I am a prayer, whispered so often even God stopped listening.
I am a ship taking on water — even the Titanic is sinkable, if you hit her in just the right spot. 
I am a note sustained too long, trembling on the edge of silence —

— silence that persists so long, I’m no longer even sure what breaking would sound like.
I am stitched from necessity — fraying is not a choice I’m permitted. 
Some days I am unsure if I can persist, 
but as a shoreline remains — worn away as it is by waves that never rest — 
so I remain, somehow, despite the damage,
in spite of the damage, 
in spite of him.
Never be him.