i was always told that the world is cruel
but i didn't think it was cruel to the point my whole family would turn against each other.
i remember waking up to my parents arguing,
i remember waking up to the sound of my dad smashing things,
my mum threatening to leave,
i grew up around the opposite of love.
my mum would always tell my dad,
stay with "your" daughter,
she didn't claim me as her daughter.
but she never seemed to say that about my other sisters.
growing up i didn't think much of it,
that was until i got older.
i realised ,
maybe it was because i reminded her of my dad,
you could tell she didn't want to be with him
but the thought of a perfect family
mattered much more to her.
i didn't want to be like my dad.
the man i watched turn my mums life into hell.
the man that made me and my sisters suffer,
but the sad reality was that i was just like him
i took my anger out on people that did nothing to me,
i did anything to fill the void.
i am my dads rage,
he lives in a cell behind my mind
and bleeds through my words,
i see him when i say something i regret,
he flickers behind my reflection,
and sometimes i can't help but wonder,
if he can recognise the parts of himself
he buried in me,
i wonder if he feels the same shame i do.
being in such a toxic household is like drowning
you swim up till your at the top
and just as your about to take a deep breath of air
a wave smashes you back down.
you have just enough oxygen to keep you alive
however not enough to live off.
This cycle repeats as long as you live in this house
nothing ever changes.
when i say i hate kids
i don't mean i hate them for being messy
or noisy,
i think its just the jealousy in me
when i see their parents happy with each other
happily married
the jealousy ill never get over.
being able to leave is probably so relieving,
i don't blame my sister for never being home
i'm glad she can be happier
she found a safe place to heal her wounds
I'm not a little girl anymore
i can defend myself,
the missiles no longer fly over my head
i'm too tall now,
they hit me right in the chest
mum and dad have been playing tug of war
but im the rope.
my mum didn't grow up happy either
i could never blame her
she was broken,
but her brokenness cut into me
and made me bleed.
as a girl i feel so much empathy for my mum
but as a daughter
i have so much anger.
i am half my mum and half my dad.
the best and worst of them together
exists in me.
my dad can't look at me
without getting up to leave,
and my mum stares into my eyes,
for hours because he is all she can see.
i do love my parents,
my childhood wasn't that bad,
but you can love someone
and also resent them
because of what they did
but also
what they didn't do.
in a house where shadows whisper
each day unfolds in a painful flow
tangled in echoes of violence and rage
i learned to survive,
but the scars are still there.
walls that once sheltered
now feel like a jail
each memory attached to my heart
and to the walls.
my only wish is,
when i was a child and i said
"i cant , im not good enough to do it"
someone wiser and kinder would tell me
"you can and you are"
i imagine how different things would be
if i had just heard those words
if someone had believed in me
more than i believed in myself,
maybe the outcome could have been different.
dad, you inspire me
you inspire me because of the way you treated me
my younger me.
you inspire me with how you treated my sisters and my mum,
you inspire me with the way you handle your anger
with the way you handle conflicts
and the way you handle stress
you inspire me with everything you do
to try to be nothing like you
you inspire me to be better.
i remember the nights my parents broke up
i would go to my grandmas house
i would be greeted by my dad
he tried his hardest at points
he would let me draw on his phone
and he would take me to the park,
i just wonder
why he couldn't have stayed like that
why he had to make us suffer
why he always switched up
when it came to my mum
"don't be so hard on your parents,
its their first time living too"
it is everyones first time living,
you don't need to argue or abuse.
i understand its their first time living
but its mine and my sisters too.
and to my older sisters,
i know you went through so much more
than i ever did,
they were supposed to be your parents
a safe space
not a place of fear
and although they are your parents
they left scars and trauma
that will never disappear.
As parents,
your children should not have too witness your loss of love,
your children should not have too witness your abuse,
verbal and physical.
we are your children
begging for the storm to fade
so a happy place
can finally be rebuilt.
i'm tired of living in a house
where the rooms are walls filled with negativity
and disappointment too.
i'm tired of going downstairs
and being judged for everything i do
this isn't a home.
its a house with a roof.
