I Write Sins, Not Tragedies-Pt1

The years that have passed.. My mind, always my heaviest burden, has been riddled with confusion. Pain. Remorse. Perpetual hatred towards the child I was, thinking I had been a man. Confusion. I was my fathers child, and in a specific sense of what happened you were the only victim that child ever had. What I did… Let me first tell you who I am now. I am a twenty eight year old who lives in the past to an extent that threatens his future. I am a father to one daughter. I have been given that blessing, though it has been difficult, and even while I write this she is not here. But I see her often. I lived with her half of her life. She knows me as her Daddy and she feels safe with me. I am not empty, void of emotion. I am void of expression, because my mind doesn’t take time to put emotion on my face, it is too busy defending me from you and everyone else i have ever looked at. That was the most important thing i could say to you, to hope you might one day understand. I am not the smirk. I know him. I know the face you see I know it better than anyone, and you’re not the only one who knows it. But it is not an evil face. It is not the face of a liar, an apex predator during a hunt. It is the face of a cougar trying to persuade the lion not to bite. That face is a barrier between humans. A joke to ease anxiety. A flirty quip to avoid real conversation. That smirk is simply the face you make after you tell the person you love that the “connection is real” and “your music is edgy” and “I like your haircut” instead of telling them “I feel dependent on your affection because my past trauma that I have yet to deal with threatens my sense of worth and I am only happy when you smile at me” That face isn’t a lie, it’s a shield.