My Father, My Pain

He was everything to me.
My father.
My hero.
The man I loved more than anyone else.
My first love.
My protector.
My light.
My world.

But now, he’s gone.

Not in the way that people leave this life—but in a way that’s worse.
He’s fallen into darkness, and it feels like he’s taken my soul with him.
He ruined us.
He broke our family into pieces that can never be put back together.
He hurt our mother in ways I can’t even speak out loud.
And now, I don’t even know who he is anymore.
He’s lost, trapped in something unforgivable—with a teenager.

This Christmas… this Christmas is the coldest, loneliest one I’ve ever known.
We’ve lost everything.
Our home.
Our family.
Our hope.

I don’t want to be here.
I want to disappear into a place where no one knows me, where I can just be nothing.
I want to fall apart, to cry until there are no tears left.
I want to scream so loud that the pain in my chest has nowhere left to hide.
I want to run—run until my legs give out until I can’t feel this ache anymore.

But I can’t.
The tears stay trapped, strangled by a mind that won’t stop racing, spinning faster and faster, drowning me in everything I can’t say out loud.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
I can’t be.

God, I am drowning.
I am sinking deeper and deeper, and there’s no one to save me.
No one.

I’m not strong enough to keep my head above the water anymore.

I’m drowning, God.
I’m drowning.
And I don’t know if I’ll make it out this time.