Our youngest cousin is nine; favourite game is hide and seek and he plays it best with his dad
One time am at their place and he comes to me like "Cousin I want to play hide and seek but my dad is not here, why don't you 'play' my father?"
He turns around, face against the wall, counts from one to three then turns back to look for me in the living room
Shockingly he finds me sitting on the couch staring at him, face frowned.
I never went to hide
I never went to hide because I know what it feels like to be without a dad
I know what it feels like to have to look for your dad in a house he built for you guys to stay together and not find him
I know what what it means to have somebody else you completely don't know 'play your father'
The last call I received from my dad was in November 2020, exactly 25 years after he married my mum
The call came from the guest room where he was, I was in the living room with my mum watching TV
I grew up in a family where parents don't sleep in the same room
I grew up knowing that parents don't sleep in the same room; they only do in the middle of the night when they're praying like my dad once told me! I believed him
I grew up in a family where parents could sit in opposite couches in the sitting room and stare at each other for five good hours without talking.
I would be their tool of communication; dad would secretly call me and send me to mum and mum back to dad; that their chocked me. I walked between them in kilometers I could never count.
My mum's name is Mara. My dad's name is Thorne. So whenever my English teacher would ask what I would be when I grow up and say a mara-thoner; guess she never understood
Sit beside my dad and look at mum on the other side; you would see it all
Face sore, heart sore; bruises has made her once love life sore
Memories of what she thought was the perfect score
Flashbacks of a ceremony she believed would never ever make her mourn
Flashbacks of a ceremony that happened and passed
Like it never happened she says
Like it never ever happened
To her it never did...
White is the best of all colors, it's the colour of the wedding dress my mother wore then.
Bright is the best word for a better future , it has the word right in it
But all this, all this can fade away just given the slightest of dirt.
Sit beside my dad and you'll the heartbeats of a man deep in depression...
Married her in the local municipal church
Everybody was there; kins said they were a perfect match
Now he's there, with nothing on to clutch
Misunderstandings took it away, divorce the only way for each party's peace to claim
Heart sore in the best of ways, struggling to forget every feeling and memory
Like it never happened
Like they were never married...
Life is good, ooh life can be good
Only sucks when you're in a mess
With no cling; nowhere to hide your face
That sucks; yes it sucks
White is the best of all colors yet the easiest to stain
Bright is the perfect word for a better future
But give the slightest of dirt to all these and they all shadow away
Life can be good, it can be good
Only sucks when you're in a mess
With nowhere to hide your face
Believe you me that sucks
You see to them it never happened
To them they never had me
They were never married
Like it never happened they say!
© amimoh
