…

People like to joke
about girls with daddy issues.

They say it lightly,
like it’s a punchline,
like it’s something
you laugh about
and move on.

But nobody talks about
where it starts. 

Nobody talks about
what it feels like
to grow up
with a space in your life
that was supposed to be filled
by a father.

An empty seat
at moments
that mattered.

I used to watch the other kids
run into their dad’s arms
after school.

Like love was something
they never had to question.

And I would stand there
a little longer than everyone else,
pretending I wasn’t watching.

Pretending it didn’t hurt
to see something
I never had.

And I wondered
what it felt like
to be looked at
like you were someone’s whole world.

Because there were moments
I needed my dad.

Moments when life
started getting complicated.

Moments when I needed someone
to show me what love
was supposed to look like.

Someone to tell me
how a man
should treat me.

But silence
answered instead.

So I grew up
learning those lessons
the hard way.

Trying to understand love
from people who were just as lost as I was.

Trying to fill a space
that was never supposed
to be empty.

How do you mourn someone
who is still alive?

How do you grieve
a father who exists?

Because that kind of loss
doesn’t look like death.

It looks like confusion.
It looks like wondering
why you weren’t enough
to make someone stay.

It looks like learning
how to love
without ever being shown
how.

So when people laugh
and say
“daddy issues,”

they don’t see
the little girl
who just wanted
to be chosen.

They don’t see
the quiet questions
that follow you
into adulthood.

And they definitely
don’t see the part of me
that still wonders

what kind of woman
I might have been
if my dad
had actually been there.

Sanaya Thomas is a Second-Year Psychology major and Women’s and Gender Studies Minor, and is the Secretary of Blacklight. ST1042469@wcupa.edu