i know i am not the child my father dreamed of
he looks at me with sorrow at what i could’ve been.
my father sought to shape me into his personal prodigy,
a trophy for his friends
rather than his son i was to be his greatest achievement.

my father prayed for a mathematician
“oh please my lord, bestow upon him logic”
i would be a boy of men who watched liverpool play with a beer in the afternoon.
a mathematician who marries a woman of his choosing
builds a house and has three kids with a range on the driveway.
the lads lad who never cries but laughs it off with his boys.
   “don’t tell anyone how you’re feeling! 
          sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt you!”
be a man who gets a big dog,
man’s best friend after all!

the first time my father put a mask on my face before taking me out with his friends 
was when i first became a failure in his eyes
before that i was just a disappointment
a sentimental child who was always closer to girls
and formed telepathic bonds with cats,
so much so that he had to give mine away.

the fatal flaw that no longer made me his son
is that my father’s only child was gifted a life of queerhood.
the words he screamed and the bruises he inflicted
hang over my head as i hold it underwater
i embody a lifetime of resentment
that no action or apology can fix
we are severed.
my father’s rejection haunts my journey.
“how does one accept love if his existence is questioned by the very thing that gave him life?”

i reimagine myself in a kinder space
where my father’s actions are not the same
because my queerness remains hidden.
this place is a utopia where i am a mathematician
and there he would love me for it
because i would finally be his trophy.