In a life where I have someone else’s father, I may or may not still be a writer. I may have had a childhood where we spent days in the pool, held hands to cross the street, and ate cookies & milk at the dinner table before bed. In a life where I have someone else’s father, I know nothing about the sound of fists cracking, what it looks like to hold someone by the throat until they gasp for air, what it means to make a bed correctly and not get punished. What it means to watch an older brother be raised through anger and discipline in place of love. In a world where I am raised by someone else’s father, I see no milk runs at 2am, no dinners alone, no bedtime at 7pm, no ribs protruding through t-shirt, no drugs no drugs no drugs. If I were raised by someone else’s father, I’d know who to call on Father’s Day. I’d have gone to more Father/daughter dances. In a life where I’m raised by someone else’s father, maybe I wouldn’t be so broken now. So afraid to answer a call from an unknown number, anxious when I see a Dodge blue truck. Maybe I wouldn’t understand what it means to lose, what it means to experience loss after loss after loss. If I were raised by someone else’s father, I wouldn’t feel alone in a crowded room, trapped in a mind that can’t think, a body conditioned to not feel.
In another life, if I were raised by someone else’s father, I wouldn’t have to pick up the pieces of a broken home. But then again…
I wouldn’t be who I am if I were raised by someone else’s father.
Kaitlynn Yeager is a senior Creative Writing and Publishing & Editing major. She mainly writes fiction and poetry. She enjoys binging Bob’s Burgers, eating her weight in french fries, and listening to music.