A later that never arrived

Has he died yet?

My late father watching from a crystal ball when I write my suicide note,

You want me to serve your purpose but who am I though?

A question I wrote when he was peeping through,

It is always questions one poses which decides which people are nuked

Which decides whether one is chosen from an adoption list,

You are an Orwellian animal stuck on a barren farm

But animals do not go through background checks and screens,

Do not patiently wait before a portal for the family to collect their spirits

Where they hanged

This is what he hopes will happen to delay the questions I will ask in person.

But dead people are not persons!

Dead people do not choose their own caskets

Unless they had a premonition and acted upon it,

Funeral songs are sung by the church you never attended

Speeches are made by those who never texted

back,

I meant to say texted back

I sometimes forget to complete sentences when I speak

Forget that I am not alone in the room talking to myself,

The silence I will have when they are done with the shovels

And collecting soil from the grave to summon me when I am needed.

It only those who are not needed who has a privilege to rest in peace

A comfort I give myself as I wait for the first visit on this tomb,

An enquiry on how I should have opened up and reached out

My psychology degree will finally be of recognition this time,

A thought I often pondered when I felt worthless

For not having an income,

For the dead are just therapists with just silence

The silence doctors gave when I asked what is wrong with me,

Please tell me what is wrong with me!

The question you ask when your loved ones do not choose you

When you do not know what else to do to save your marriage.

A to-do list is to listen and keep quiet when you are a woman

A role awaiting women in the grave again,

Your children do not listen since you are not around!

Your husband realizing that providing and not being there

Was never fatherhood,

You have spoilt these children-

Appreciative words you only received when you were around

For being around is the reason people do not appreciate your absence

Being around means to be tracked down to be raped

And murdered,

It means take everything from me till I have nothing to give.

It means do whatever pleases you with my body

Since I have nothing to give you,

It means raise the children for us till I am man enough to do so

It means open up to me and use the trauma against you,

Later when we fight

But for now I will not worry about later,

For now telling me that you still love me is enough

For we did not grow up being told that we are loved,

Being bought what you always wanted was how parents apologized

All those words were spared to be said later,

A later that never arrived.

It is this later that led to this suicide,

When you could no longer wait for them to account to you

Having searched for your father for decades to find him dead

A few weeks ago,

But you are the only person who thinks you are being owed

An explanation,

An explanation from your abuser asking them-

Why you?

But you means it ought to happen to someone else

Someone out there ought not to be loved,

Someone out there ought not to be heard.

You are then told that not everything is about you

When you were a child the sentence ended with

Grow up,

Words said when your ashes are sprinkled on the garden

A fertilizer for all the siblings with learning disabilities

You have left behind,

Generational curses are not lifted when others are left behind

At least that is what I used to believe when I was alive,

For being dead means acknowledging that the living

Do not owe you anything,

Your hope is to be buried on time and not rot in a morgue

While families fight over whose home soil you belong.