By Timothy Okurut
What changes when a father is absent from a child’s home? In I Wish I Had a Dad, the speaker imagines a different childhood—one filled with a father’s voice, school routines, evening bicycle rides and family guidance. However, reality tells another story. The speaker must work on the streets, while an older sister struggles through adolescence without the stability the speaker longs for. When she becomes pregnant at sixteen and the father of her baby disappears, the poem’s repeated wish becomes even more painful. It is a child’s reflection on fatherhood, absence, responsibility and the kind of home that might have been.
If I had a dad,
I would wake up to his voice,
smile and wait for his choice.
I would dress up Joyce,
pack her lunch
and run to school.
If I had a dad,
I would ride on my bike
in the evenings with Mike.
We would play soccer
and wait for that hawker
who sells milk to homes.
If I had a dad,
Sissy would report home early
and barely have boyfriends.
She would run and hide
at the sight of your ride,
because she’s not even ready
to call herself a bride!
Now I don’t have a dad.
You decide
to be good or bad.
You study on the ridge
of falling out.
The food you eat
is what you eat
because you can’t do without.
Sissy reports home so late.
At times,
she eats not of our plate.
She’s just sixteen,
but behaves as though
she were that lady
selling at the teen.
Daddy never saw her dress!
She’s dressed to impress
the lustful eyes of strangers.
Home is the best,
but our home
is not in the West!
I have to run
in the streets hawking,
just to silence
their talking.
I wish I had a dad
to walk in!
Sissy is now pregnant.
The moon
has finally set.
Wolves howl no more,
I bet.
The insistent quiet voices
have faded.
The man by whom
the baby was made
has run away!
She’s now here to stay!
For that is nature’s final act—
the cold touch
of bitter fact!
— Timothy Okurut
I wish I had a dad is such a wonderful piece that speaks volume in just small stanzas, a voice that brings out that out cry of many children that are majorly orphans, bastards and homeless.thank you flashi magazine for publishing this poem in your platform
This shit is real and happens in real life
It’s real
This is more than a poem u read it at heart
this magazine should definitely pump us more of this poet
You nailed it Boss
Wow this is so amazing , it’s not just poetry ,it’s reality
So realistic and vivid ❤️
Wow
I wish I had a dad too
I would be more like him
Not pick pieces of men who tried to fill his vacuum.
Perhaps Sissy tried to do what he ought to have done
Only that now she suffers not from her decision but from the wrong the world puts on those without fathers.
What a excellent poem
I wish I had a present dad