Maya Patel

Maya Patel Poems

The Best Poem Of Maya Patel

Papa

I'm only twelve years old,
And when you're young like me,
You see the real ness in people. You see in their soul. You don't care about what they look like on the outside, or what their actions are.
That's why I love my papa.
How could papa ever go wrong?
Our pristine walls,
The tidy carpets,
And the clothes I'm wearing right now,
They're all papa's money.
Even if the walls have holes punched in them, even if my clothes are drenched in my tears and filled with wrinkles from when papa hits me.
And I know papa never goes wrong because,
Because my friends are always jealous when they come over.
At our pristine walls,
The tidy carpets,
And my clothes,
And they say that I have the best papa in the entire world.
He fixes my friends lemonade, and doesn't say a thing if we're a bit too loud around the house and doesn't care if I'm laughing or snorting immaturely.
I like when my friends are over,
Because when they're not, papa never acts like that.

My friends always say, "Hey, all dads are like that. They like to appear cool around their child's buddies."
I know it's not like that.
Because when my friends aren't over,
Dad's face changes. His mouth holding a big scowl,
And he pushes me against the table and yells over me.
If I mop in a slightly different direction,
"GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON WHY YOU SHOULDN'T KILL YOURSELF, YOU MORON. SUCH A PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A LIFE, JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER."
I'm not being disrespectful, I'm not saying he's wrong.
I'm always in the wrong. Maybe if I'd moped the same symmetrical way he wanted,
The house would still be nice, with its
Pristine walls,
And the tidy carpets,
I… I'm the one making all the mistakes.
I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt you,
Dad says. This is his eleventh time this month.
When I go over to my friends' houses, they don't
Have pristine walls,
Or tidy carpets,
Or clothes like mine.
But their dad's are different.
"Listen, honey, do the laundry, or I'm taking away your phone tonight."
Yikes.
And my friends always say that I'm lucky to have a papa who doesn't say things like that.
But they don't know.
Sometimes, papa's too lazy to make a comment, because he's drunk on the couch the entire day, and sometimes, papa looks like at me like I'm an opponent on a battle ground, and he twists my neck and spits on my face.
I don't say anything back to my friends, because you can only make a statement if its true all the time. I don't even know how papa will be at any given time of the day.
"Yeah. I guess I am lucky, my dad's so nice all the time."
I don't often speak against my papa's words.
When he isn't angry, he forgets who he is.
He carries me around on his shoulder and he's the happiest man on Earth.
But I guess that's why the world never knows what he does behind closed doors.
I'm jealous when my friends' fathers set boundaries with their kids. Yeah, they're strict. Yeah, they're harsh sometimes. But… atleast they're the same all the time.
I can't say that for myself. One day, my papa lets me go out for a run and the next day, if he hears me walking around the house, I get beaten.
I'm jealous when I see my friends' father yelling at them when I'm around. It means they discipline their child, whatsoever.
But when I get disciplined, my friends can't believe it, because
Papa put on such a strong cloak of invisibility around who he really is, to the point where I can't talk about what's happening to me anymore. Nobody believes me.
But what do I know?
I'm always in the wrong, and papa never is.
I'll be stuck with just that for the rest of my life.
Every single time I disobey you, I feel like the biggest criminal in the world.
My confidence shriveling,
And my anger drills into my head,
And every hope I have for myself goes away in that one second.
All because I'm papa's little girl, and when you're papa's little girl,
You're nothing but a punching bag for papa's emotions.
I miss being your little girl, papa,
I miss when I'm perfect.

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