“Kill The Part Of You That Believes It Can’t Survive Without Someone Else.”

I want someone to write about the struggle between a daughter and a father. I’ve seen a lot of father-son and mother-daughter relationships, but not much about father-daughter struggles, especially the absolute rage and anger that can come from it. When I talk about father issues, I’m not talking about sexualizing older men. I mean in a way where you absolutely hate men, can’t trust them, and can’t even think about relationships or marriage.

It’s the kind of deep-rooted issue that makes you start hating your mother for choosing him. You start hating her for staying with him, for not protecting you. You look at her and wonder how she could have ever loved someone like him, (if she even loves him) and that disgust turns inward.

It gets worse if you look like your father—physically resemble him or even have the same personality traits—and you subconsciously start hating yourself more because of it. To the point where you can’t even look at yourself in the mirror. To want to change your face not because you are not pretty or ugly but because you look like him. To literally want to get surgery to change, the possibility of separating yourself.

And then there’s the backhanded compliment—or what people think is a compliment—that cuts deeper than anything they could ever know. “Oh, you look just like your father.” “You’re his daughter through and through.” “You’re so much like him.” Those words might seem harmless to others, maybe even sweet, but to you, they feel like a slap in the face. They sting because they force you to confront the very thing you’ve spent your entire life trying to escape. Every time someone says it, you want to scream, to rip the words out of the air because how could anyone think it’s a compliment to tell you that you’re like him?

It’s like they’re telling you that no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be able to separate yourself from him. You’ll always be his daughter. You’ll always carry his face, his traits, his blood. And it disgusts you. You feel trapped in a body that betrays you, a face that mirrors the man you hate. You can’t even express that hatred without people looking at you like you’re the problem, because to them, your father is this great guy. They say these things with a smile, expecting you to smile back, to be proud of the resemblance. But inside, you’re boiling.

“I am my father’s daughter.” Just hearing those words makes you want to tear yourself apart. It feels like a label, a mark you can’t scrub off no matter how hard you try. It’s suffocating. It’s like being branded with his identity, with no room to claim your own. And the worst part is, there are girls who love hearing those words. There are girls who love their fathers, who have healthy, warm relationships with them, who feel safe and cared for. For them, being “their father’s daughter” is a badge of honor, something that gives them pride, stability, and security.

But for you, it’s a curse.

People don’t understand the weight of those words. They don’t understand that for some people, being compared to our fathers is the worst thing they could say. They don’t see the years of hurt, the emotional scars that come with being his daughter.

I want to see more stories that deal with how fathers raise their daughters and the struggles that come with it. There’s so much emotional complexity there that gets overlooked.

This isn’t just about fathers who abandon their daughters; it’s about the fathers who are there, physically present, but emotionally absent or destructive.

There are fathers who can’t be there because of circumstances like death or illness, and while that absence leaves a mark, it’s an entirely different kind of wound when he chooses not to be there emotionally. It’s a choice, an intentional decision to withhold love, affection, or support, and that cuts deeper than any physical absence ever could.

And what’s even more unbearable is when he’s two-faced. To the outside world, he’s the perfect father figure. He’s the guy who’s great with other kids, the one who goes out of his way to be kind to everyone else’s children. People see him as a role model, a good man, and everyone praises him for how he seems to have it all together. He’s charming, well-liked, and so carefully maintains that image of a loving father. He might even be the type that other kids look up to, wishing they had a dad like him.

But behind closed doors, it’s different. To you, he’s a stranger. He’s cold, dismissive, or harsh. He’s emotionally unavailable, maybe even manipulative, and you’re the only one who sees this side of him. It’s like you’re living in a completely different reality from everyone else, and when you try to speak up, no one believes you. They dismiss your pain, calling you “ungrateful” or “spoiled” because they only see the version of him he shows to the world.

You hear things like, “He’s doing his best,” or “You should be thankful he’s around.” It’s infuriating, because they don’t see what you see. They don’t understand that it’s worse to have a father who’s there but refuses to connect with you, who refuses to show up emotionally. They can’t understand how lonely that is, or how it twists you up inside because everyone thinks you’re the problem. You’re the one being “difficult,” “rude,” or “disrespectful,” when in reality, you’re just reacting to years of neglect that no one else acknowledges.

And then the self-doubt sets in, because if he’s so well-liked, if everyone else adores him, then why can’t you? You start to feel like the problem must be with you. You must be defective, broken somehow. Maybe you’re too sensitive, too needy, too much. And because he’s so convincing, so good at playing the role, you internalize all of it. You carry the guilt and the shame, convinced that you’re the one who’s unworthy of love, that you’re the one who’s hard to love.

It messes with your head, too. It makes you question your own experience. Is it really that bad? you ask yourself, because no one else seems to see it. You wonder if maybe you’re being dramatic, if maybe you’re imagining it. But deep down, you know the truth—you’ve been starving for emotional connection your entire life, and he’s never given it to you. That kind of deprivation shapes you in ways that are hard to explain to others. It affects the way you relate to people, the way you trust—or don’t trust—men, and how you approach love and vulnerability.

It’s one thing to be hurt by someone who’s openly abusive or neglectful—there’s at least some validation in knowing that others see it too. But when it’s someone who’s adored by everyone else, someone who gets away with being emotionally absent because they’re so well-liked, it’s a different kind of betrayal. It makes you feel invisible, like your pain doesn’t matter, like you’re screaming into the void and no one can hear you.

These are the fathers who claim to be doing their best but aren’t really doing anything at all. And what’s worse, they’ve convinced everyone else they’re the good guy, leaving you alone in your frustration, your sadness, your anger.

And then, give us the release. The fight. I want to see that rage manifest—literally—in a sword fight, for fuck’s sake. Something that captures all the pent-up aggression, all the years of holding back, until it all comes spilling out in a physical confrontation. The sword fight doesn’t even need to be metaphorical—it can be real. Give us a clash of wills, of generations. Let the daughter finally confront her father, not just with words but with action. Let the swords represent the cutting words they’ve exchanged over the years, the silent battles fought behind closed doors.

The sword fight becomes a turning point—a moment where the daughter, after years of feeling powerless, and manipulated finally stands up to her father. The sword is not just a weapon; it’s her voice, her anger, her defiance. It’s messy, violent, emotional—because that’s what this kind of pain looks like. It’s not clean or simple. It’s raw, and it’s ugly.

By the end, I don’t need a happy, clean resolution. I don’t need them to hug it out or for everything to be neatly tied up.They part ways, it’s not with a sense of closure but with a hard-won peace, accepting that they may never understand each other or find common ground.

Both to live without the weight of each other’s expectations and disappointments, free to define themselves without the other’s presence.

The daughter finds peace on her own terms, and even if her father is left with regrets, she no longer carries them for him. There’s no reconciliation, no last-minute forgiveness, just a quiet, resolute parting—a moment where each chooses their own path, accepting that they may never meet again, but finally free from the burdens of the past.

"I am not as forgiving as your mother or wife, I am your daughter. your karma and your blessing in one."

הבל | hevel

This is how it goes: God whispers in Cain’s jealous ear, drawing his attention to the Sin crouched at his doorway. Sin has haunted eyes and a mouth that has been kissed. Let there be no doubt that Sin has been kissed, with a wet-red mouth that may taste of blood or pomegranate or the electric crackle of a stoplight. Cain looks at Sin. He runs his tongue over his teeth.

This is how it goes: Cain leaves the house at one am in bare feet and a hoodie, careful to avoid the last stair that creaks, and treks out into the Field. There are many fields in the world but there is only one Field. Cain feels the difference in the grass when he crosses the border from field to Field, the way the grey-green blades stand up at attention in his wake, the way the dirt turns ice-cold and furious beneath his heels. The earth is good with foreshadowing. The tree of Knowledge has deep roots.

This is how it goes: God says, I will take you or your brother.

God says, You get to choose.

And Cain says, “When you split me and my brother in the womb, you did not divide us evenly. He got kindness, and I got longing. He got complacence, and I got ambition. I want to kill him sometimes. I think sometimes he wants to die.”

I have never made brothers before, God explains. That is how I thought they were made. What more do you want?

“I want to steal some of his kindness,” Cain says, and shakes his pocket knife out of his sleeve.

Back at home, Abel sits up in his bed with a start, heart racing. That was close, he thinks, that was a damn close one, and does not know why.

In the Field, the ground warms as blood seeps into the dirt. 

Emily Dickinson, from her poem titled "1188," featured in The Emergency Poet

Sylvia Plath

I waited too long for you.

I will devour you, love you into flame,...

// H.D., from Collected Poems: 1912-1944; "A Dead Priestess Speaks,"

From "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath", dated October 1, 1957

Franz Kafka, 1912

— Franz Kafka

Is this really the world? Shall I grieve? Shall I hope?

adonis, tr. by khaled mattawa