Bernard

daddy, you’re not my daddy. just a strange man with similar features. you play make believe every winter, sometimes the spring. i thought it was a fun game of dress-up, until i learned the difference between imagination and reality. you find the blonde hair, pale-faced mask you bought in 1987 in a box that’s hidden in the back of your closet. it’s covered in dust and labeled, “Unimportant Winter/Spring Stuff.” you call me your baby girl — stop by in your ’85 dodge pick-up — make me call you daddy. but daddy, you’re not my daddy. and you didn’t want me to call you daddy when i was a year old, in 1988. you left the house with two over-stuffed duffle bags — one filled with clothes, the other with booze. you jumped in your ’85 dodge pick-up with a fat woman named kim — an ugly b*tch with sh*t-colored hair. that’s the day you saw the ugly in me, yet saw beauty in her while flying down muddy creek road doing 70.