Santa poem

Dear Santa,

I don’t know if you read letters like this,

not about toys, not about gifts,

but about a life

that never felt like childhood.

I live in a quiet place now,

but inside me

there is still noise.

I was just a little girl

when the world became heavy.

School was not a place to grow —

it was a place to survive.

They laughed, they pushed, they named me things,

and no one stood up for me.

Tell me, Santa,

was I really that bad?

Did I deserve all of that?

At home, it wasn’t better.

After my parents broke apart,

my mother looked at me

like I was the reason.

She said my voice was too rough,

“just like your father’s,”

as if that was something to hate.

“Not enough” —

that’s what I heard everywhere.

At school.

At home.

Inside my own head.

They said my father was a bad man.

But somehow,

I found music.

I sat with my synthesizer

and played

“Deșteaptă-te, române”

like I was waking myself up

from a long, painful sleep.

And for a moment —

I didn’t care

what anyone said.

In 2012,

something broke inside me.

I fell in love with a man —

no one told me

he was my father.

Do you understand that kind of shock?

That kind of confusion?

They took me to a hospital

like I was the problem.

Like my feelings were wrong.

Like I had to be fixed.

But no one explained the truth.

My mother called him things —

said he was lost,

said he was nothing.

But I heard a different story:

he doesn’t drink,

he doesn’t smoke,

he plays football,

he lives.

And I asked myself:

Do I not have the right

to know my own father?

To talk to him?

To watch football?

To love Romanian songs,

Romanian food,

a part of myself?

Why is that forbidden?

Why do I have to become

someone I’m not?

Why do I have to live

being told

I am wrong for existing?

She compared me to others,

said terrible things,

things no child should hear.

But I never did those things.

I never lived that life.

I am not her anger.

I am just… me.

I read books.

I sleep with a soft toy bunny.

I sing Romanian songs

when no one listens.

I bought myself two dresses,

and a pair of heels —

just to feel

a little beautiful.

Santa,

I don’t need presents.

I just want to know —

am I allowed

to be myself?

Because after everything,

after all the noise,

all the pain,

all the confusion…

I am still here.

And maybe

that means something.