to you,

There was something about sitting at your funeral that made my stomach churn the way it did. It flopped the same way when I saw people yelling on the street, or when I couldn't get something right no matter how much I tried. 

It was uncomfortable, unwelcome, out of place.

You didn't look like you belonged in that casket as pale as the dress shirt you wore—no, no dressed. You never liked dresses. Not even the simple ones.

But still you didn't look like you'd be cased up with your hands folded and limp on your stomach.

(But with a sickening thought, I realized I wouldn't have wanted to see you any other way.)

In one corner of the room there were flowers sent from the company you worked for. In another, a slideshow of sixty or so pictures ran on a loop as your favorite Barry Manilow songs trickled from the low-quality speakers.

I made that slideshow. I made that playlist. I wrote the poem on the cards they handed out with your picture. I wrote the speech my dad spoke at your viewing.

I was fourteen.

"Your mom was such a good person."

No... you weren't. Not to me, at least.

"You know she's proud of you, right?"

Were you? You never told me. Disappointed was the only word your eyes knew.

You even wanted a son, and here I am.

I failed you from the beginning.

"It's okay to cry."

I don't know why I'm crying. I'm not going to miss you.

"There's so many people who came to see her."

I want to leave.

"Remember she loves you."

I never got to tell you how much I hate you.

I wonder if that's okay—if it's natural to feel everything I do. Just thinking about it makes my blood burn and my mind whirl with all the times I could remember thinking I wanted no part of you, that I wanted you to step out of my life and never make that move to come back in.

Maybe you gave me shelter, maybe you fed me, maybe you never beat me.

But I don't think you ever loved me. And if you did, I never knew.

They made me pick the casket and the urn for your ashes. 

Cheapest was always best. 

from,

me

p.s. I must have loved you, once.

p.p.s. I must have been younger when I stopped because I don't remember a time when I truly did.