By Sharjah Selassie Strawn M'Bodji

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This multimedia piece explores the multifaceted journey to healing my inner child. It focuses on the trauma forged after my father left my mother and I. It’s the apology I never received.

I never got the apology that I was rightfully owed, 
the apology that wouldve allowed me to start to heal and forgive you for turnin’ my birthday into the worst days because you didnt show,
the fathers days I spent isolated missin’ the fragmented memories I had to romanticize when you left, 

how could you leave your only daughter? 
the one you would hold the tightest but was able to let go the easiest,
the one you said you loved unconditionally, but is unconditional love there being an empty sit?
a cut family photo because it’s too much to bear seein’ your unspeakable face,

I wanna forgive you for all the sleepless nights in my bed, 
the 3,650 moons Ive spent tryin’ to comprehend why I wasnt enough for you to stay,

I wanna forgive you for makin’ me feel like hittin’ myself tilI bleed, til my olive skin turned red was better than dealin’ with the fact you arent coming home.

forgive you for me not havin’ a parent in the house who looked like me to teach me how to survive in a white world and not change who I am to entertain the white man.

to guide me on how to deal with my nappy hair, 
to calm me down during the mornings when I would rather stay home than go to school and feel different because I couldnt get a brush through my hair,

to help me stand up to the white boys who would touch my luxurious spirals of beauty like I was their pet, 
a poodle they call it, 
my hair was an animal I learned to hate. 

I forgive you for not teachin’ me how to walk into a white space with my unapologetic black face.

all though I am grateful for mom, it wasnt enough for me to feel whole, 
I was your princess, 
your baby girl, 
your jah jah, 
your Sharjah Selessie Strawn but what does all of that mean when she could only survive the sadness when she wasnt thinkin’ about the man that pulled a disappearin’ act,
the man that made her feel like she was lost in a maze. 

I wanna forgive you for the videos of baby girl bawlin’ her anger and pain out because daddy’s longest stay was 6 weeks. 

the trauma you gave me that shaped me into a young girl who put her body on display, 
I am a mannequin in the hope of pleasin’ the people outside of the shop lookin’ me up and down, makin’ me worth buyin’, 

I just wanna be loved, instead, I am an advertisement for an object adolescent boys can abuse to fill the hole that you created.

I forgive you for not teachin’ me that my beauty comes from within and not the skin that is a shield for the hurt you caused, 
you never came back for me and you resigned from your permanent job of being a dad. 

mama wept for a dream of you in the blink of an eye bein’ the man she fell in love with and sorrow for the abstinence you played in her only known blood’s life, 
she lay awake for a decade waitin’ for you to open our decayed and off-white door. 

I forgive you for not bein’ locked in for life, for being like a bus that never stopped.

physically your still here but emotionally your been dead and Ive had to grieve you for way too long.

what are you supposed to feel when someone you havent seen since you were 6 years old just passes you by like you were a stranger and not someone they helped create? 

I forgive you for becomin’ a foreigner in my life, 
an unrecognizable face,
for not being a man I could look up to, 
for the tears you never saw,
the hugs you never gave, 
the money you didnt contribute, 
and triumphs you never got to see your young, gifted black girl accomplish.

I forgive you for robbin’ me of a childhood, 
for steppin’ down from the role of  “father” because behind the role of your “daughter,” who is a strong and independent woman; lies a broken little girl you bread, but eventually will be able to learn to never depend on anyone for her own happiness. 

I may be a broken mirror but I know where the pieces are scattered, so I CAN put them back together.

I can forgive but Ill never forget, 

because you pressed the trigger and the bullet landed in me.

(nobody was there to put pressure on the wound, I did that, I helped myself.)

even though the wound is startin’ to heal, there will always be a scar.

Process

I wrote this piece after being given a prompt from my instructor Subha about someone you wish you received an apology from. The first thought that came to my mind was my dad, as he has been absent for the last decade of my life. He has been the cause of my severe abandonment issues that I’ve never honestly dealt with and processed. This poem was the letter I wish I received and the words I’ve never been able to verbalize. I wrote, deleted, and edited this poem for three months; I memorized every word to every pause and performed this work of art at the Junior Scholar Program Summit in May of 2023.

The undesirable part of this process was having to relieve the psychologically damaging events that had created my hard shell and work to soften it in order to put my feelings to paper. This powerful poem took literally blood, sweat, and tears from both me and the woman who gave birth to me. This writing process opened doors to emotions I don’t think either of us was fully ready to cut through. Personally, writing this heartbreaking “apology” released the weight I’ve held on my shoulders and everything I have bottled and sealed within myself revolving around this event in my life. It was my version of therapy and healing. I am not only proud of the level of thought-provoking and reflective phrases I created but also of the journey this poem has taken me on. I am rediscovering who I am beyond who I come from.