There are no Bastards.

Is my mother the Second Virgin Mary?

“They call me a bastard.”

Their words seeping through closed doors,
their stares carving judgments into my skin.
Everywhere I go, I feel it—
the weight of a name I didn’t choose,
the burden of a story I didn’t write.

They mock me,
because my mother loved someone
who walked away.
Because her belly grew heavy with me,
while his promises grew light enough to blow away.
They blame me,
because he left her with nothing but a memory
and me with questions that burn.

I never knew the warmth of fatherly love—
no voice saying, “Come here, my child,”
no arms lifting me high to touch the sky.
Instead, I learned how to fill the silence myself,
how to build castles out of empty spaces.
Instead, I learned that love
can sometimes mean surviving alone.

When I scraped my knees,
there was no one to teach me how to get up.
When I succeeded,
there was no one to say, “I’m proud of you.”
I searched for him in every shadow,
in the stories other kids told about their dads,
and all I found was a hollow echo,
a void no child should have to face.

But still, they call me a bastard,
as if his absence defines me.
As if his shame belongs to me.
As if her strength to carry on,
to love me in spite of the world,
wasn’t a triumph worth celebrating.

And so I tell them:
“You call me a Bastard ( fatherless ).”

Yet, it takes two to tangle,
two to create a child.
It takes two to love,
and two to fail.
And if I’m a bastard because he left,
then what does that make him?

You judge me for being here,
You whisper about her as though she’s to blame,

So, if I’m a bastard,
if she’s to blame for his betrayal,
then answer me this:
are you saying my mother is the second Virgin Mary?

Because last I checked,
miracles don’t make babies—
people do.
Maybe you need to look again,
at the man who left her alone to raise me.
Look at her strength.
Look at me.
Then ask yourself who really carries the shame.