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  • Writer's pictureChelsea Brotherton

Prayer to My Ex-Father: A Pantoum

Here’s to you, and trying to forget

My father, who art in nowhere.

Your face, barely seen, burns in memory,

Damned be your name.


My father who art in nowhere,

Would you know your children’s faces?

Damned be their names.

Yours was mine, but erased from me.


Do you know your children’s faces?

Have they been hidden from your kingdom?

You were mine, and erased yourself-

May your hell be as it is in my earth.


I try to hide you as I forge my kingdom,

But daily your ghost creeps back to me.

May your hell be as it is in my nightmares,

Your ghouls the faces of your forgotten children.


Your ghost creeps back to me,

And I cannot forgive your trespasses.

The faces of your forgotten children,

I imagine them happy in your absence.


I cannot forgive your trespasses, oh father.

Abandonment is an ever-weeping wound.

I imagine myself happy in your absence,

And in moments of temptation, I let myself.


Abandonment is an ever-creeping wound,

Climbing spine and occasionally finding brain.

In moments of temptation I let myself

Be delivered from your evil.


Here’s to you, and trying to forget

Your face, barely seen- burns in memory.

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