After All, I Am My Father's Daughter

I cannot choose between empathy and regulations,

no—I don't understand labels on relations.

I care for a rabbit as I would for a tiger,

and for everyone else—for they see me as a provider.

I dream of the world resting in my hand,

Like a mother comforting her child in a distant land.

I’m not great at arguments, that’s true,

But I’d never leave a life or a lament in view.

My dad wanted to be everything,

A lawyer, a writer, a musician, and king.

But life doesn’t wait for those with big dreams,

So he chose one path, or so it seems.

Now here I stand, decades apart,

Chasing the same thunder, with a restless heart.

I don’t know if I choose or if it’s just fate,

Living a life he couldn’t, a life I create.

He wanted to build something bigger than him,

Change the world, make it not so grim.

Maybe that’s why I can’t stand still,

Why my hands itch for things too big to fulfill.

He wrote poems, tucked in notebooks so old,

Planned a future that he couldn’t hold.

I write too, though my pages are wide,

Trying to finish what he left aside.

He learned machines, the language of metal,

I learned words, to solve and to settle.

Different tongues, but the hunger the same,

To carve our names and make them flame.

I carry his contradictions, a heavy crown,

Half logic, half feeling, I wear them down.

Maybe I can have it all, take the leap,

Maybe I don’t have to choose, maybe I’ll keep.

Because after all, when the dust has flown,

I am my father’s daughter, in my heart, I’ve grown.