You speak in knives,  
each word a glinting edge,  
a father's love whittled to bone,  
stripped of tenderness.  

I am the daughter of sharp things.  
Your voice—  
a rusted hinge,  
a saw-toothed wind  
cutting through the silence  
I built to survive you.  

You call it duty.  
I call it chains.  
Your hands, lined with expectation,  
grasp at the child I no longer am.  

But I have made myself  
a locked door,  
a house without windows,  
a name you cannot summon  
without it breaking in your mouth.