1Ohio is for Lovers
"Hey there,
I know it's hard to feel, like I don't care at all.
Where you are and how you feel.
With these lights off as these wheels
keep rolling on and on."
I guess I wonder whether you're thinking about me, when I'm thinking about you. Do you ever lay in bed at night and wonder whether I'm all right, wonder if I'm awake or asleep? Because that's what I do. I can't deny the fact that I stare up at the ceiling in the hollow darkness of my room and search for you. I try to find you in my thoughts, in my memory. Try to pick out the truth from the lies and re-create that image of your face, just so that I can have one last look at the man that made me and then in turn, proceeded to destroy my life.
"Slow things down or speed them up.
Not enough or way too much.
How are you when I'm gone?"
We moved house and now you don't know where we are. I remember all the weird phone calls that we used to get. Mum would answer the phone and the person on the other line wouldn't speak. I remember her telling me that she thought that it was you and then telling me never to answer the phone if she wasn't around, because she didn't want you talking to me without her speaking to you first.
She was really afraid you know. She was scared that you'd take me away from her. She confessed it to me one night when my step-father was out. She told me that she was frightened that when I got to know you, that I'd start to hate her for what she did. I told her to stop being stupid.
But we don't live there any more. And you don't know where we are . . .
"And I can't make it on my own.
(And I can't make it all alone.)
Because my heart is in Ohio."
My step-father didn't like the fact that you came along, you know. As soon as he knew that I wanted to meet you, he started getting voilent. He hit my mother a few times, how many, I don't know, because I was never around to see it. But I know that he once gave her a black eye. That was when I stopped talking to him. He said that he didn't mean to do it and that he lost control. I went to my room and cried. But that was only the beginning of it all.
When him and my mother split up, he came to our house on Boxing Night and tried to break our front door down. He looked frightening that night and I recall the way that he screamed that he was going to rip our throats out and watch us bleed. He had a knife in his pocket, I watched him throw it into the grass when the police came. If he'd have hit that door one more time it would have caved in and neither me or my mother would be here right now. That was the night that I regretted saying that I wanted to see you and I began to wish that I'd just lied again and said that I wasn't bothered.
"So cut my wrists and black my eyes.
So I can fall asleep tonight, or die.
Because you kill me.
You know you do, you kill me well.
You like it too, and I can tell.
You'll never stop until my final breath is gone."
Then you said that you didn't believe that my mother was telling the truth. You told everybody that she was crazy and you didn't even know her. You lied when you said that, because my mum told me that when she opened the front door to pay you for cleaning our windows, you dropped to your knees in surprise. The two of you had only met once, but she remembered you and you certainly remembered her. I still don't understand why you lied.
You were even given a photograph of me and you even told your best friend that I had your good looks and your brains. So I don't know how you had the courage to lie afterwards and say that you didn't believe us.
"Spare me just, three last words.
"I love you" is all she heard.
I'll wait for you, but I can't wait forever."
I don't understand what's taking you so long. I waited a year for you sort out the DNA tests, but when the date came for you to have yours done, you never went. I was so angry at you that I got a knife from the kitchen drawer, and that was the start of the year that brought me the most pain. I don't blame you for what I did to myself, don't get me wrong, but I still want you to know what I went through after you ditched me like that.
My friends at school didn't know anything and when they found out they asked me why I didn't tell them sooner. I remember thinking that I wanted to keep you to myself. I didn't want anybody else to know about you. You were mine.
I was jelous of the three children that you visit. The two little girls that live with your ex-girlfriend and the son that you live with. I still am jelous of them, because they don't understand how much they've got. The other three girls that you've fathered never see you either. But that's their choice, I guess. They know about you and they're happy enough to live with your name and nothing more.
But I was your first.
"And I can't make it on my own.
(and I can't make it all alone.)
Because my heart is in Ohio."
I can't live without a man in my life. I'm too weak. My mother tries to tell me that I'm strong, but I'm not. Just because she is, doesn't mean that I am too. I don't think she understands me a lot of the time. She's always had her father there, even if he was in and out of prison all the time, at least she knows him and at least he's there for good now.
It's not the same when you've only ever seen a picture and now when you look back, you can't even remember that as well as you'd like to.
"So cut my wrists and black my eyes.
So I can fall asleep tonight or die.
Because you kill me.
You know you do, you kill me well.
You like it too, and I can tell.
You'll never stop until my final breath is gone."
Now when I think of your name all I want to do is rip you apart. Everytime my mother recieves a letter from the Child Support Agency, stating how much Maintanience you're paying for me, I have to turn away from her and close my eyes to stop myself crying. She hates to see me cry over you and everytime I do, she tells me that you're worthless and that it's your loss and not mine. That's something else that she doesn't understand.
It hurts to be left hanging like that. It hurts to be led on thinking that your going to get everything that you've ever wanted, only to be pushed into the dirt at the end of it all and laughed at. Yes, laughed at. Everyone around us is laughing, you know. Especially my step-father. He knew what was going to happen. They all knew, everyone except me and my mum. I bet you knew too. I bet you were doing it too look good in front of your so-called mates. Either that or you did it for revenge on my mother for not staying with you that night sixteen years ago.
Either way, you've killed my respect for you, I hope you realise that. And my trust in the male species has deteriorated too. Just don't hope to come prancing back to me in a few years time when you've got no money and your desperate for your next shot. Because eventhough I stare at the ceiling and think about you at night, eventhough I cry about you when nobody's there to see and even though these marks on my arm are fading reminders of you, deep down inside, you're no longer my father . . .