The Hub: “Father” by Camilia Darwish

“Father”

by: Camilia Darwish

When life breathed life into me,

Against the odds, my mother’s odds,

My father laid me in the ocean.

Like baby Moses, I thought.

A peekaboo game, I had hoped.

Hide away, hide away, little girl.

But when mother’s grieving hands

Wove me a blanket of lies,

I drowned downward from the stars.

Then when the shadow of his parting

Mast grew on me, I grew bored and

I grew bold, I grew stronger,

I grew me a mountain, and then I

Walked all my million years of grief

Till I forgot father’s name.

Camilia Darwish has just completed her first year in the Honours Bachelor of Creative Writing & Publishing at Sheridan College.