they say I'm like you

they say I'm like you
I have your nose, your lost, brown eyes
always hurling themselves into oceans of thought
I wear your melancholy across my shoulders
broad, like the ones stretched across your back,
daddy
they say I'm like you
your fingerprints carefully forming the pride in my spine
we lifted all the heavy furniture
moving it from one side of the house to another
like the chess pieces inside my chest only you can play,
daddy
they say I'm like you
looking at myself, pulling triggers of impatience
fingers to my brain, temples full of disdain
my hopes and opinions sharpen as I train
my wit and will of iron
you set out to raise the kind of woman you expect
but you raised a queen instead
am I too unlike the son you still don't realize you wanted,
daddy
they say I'm like you
the sturdy sapling you watered with your blood and patience,
but placing angry fists
to the parts of me that are an unflattering mirror,
daddy
if I were your son
would you have told me, "you're too opinionated for your age."
if I were your son
would you have meant, "too opinionated for a woman."
if I were your son
would you have told me I would be beautiful if
I could just look more like my mother
whose tiny waist and petite frame have
never borne well the weight of her confidence
if I were your son
would you have equated respect with my acquiescence
daddy
the masterpieces of adoration my imagination painted of you
made a likeness that looked too much like you, like me
for you to accept them, daddy
if I were your son
would you have told me, "I don't care what you think about me.
I don't need your approval."
when you know your very bones draw life from my
powerful affection that you taught me to give,
daddy, I love you, but I'm done apologizing
for being big, for being powerful, for being enough
and I will hide the parts of me I'm proudest of
until you learn to stop apologizing to the world for me
because it says I'm like you,
I like you, daddy
but I must wait till you do