Where Are My Words?

therapy

"Your child is strange,"
the woman spoke
as if unique couldn't have
been a better word.

"Does she need help?"
Words that a mother stutters
because God forbid
her little baby doesn't fit in.

"Well, she'll get over it."
There is shuffling.
Her father thinks
that maybe she's faking.

"I.."
The child doesn't get a chance
to explain how she feels.
She's cut off and interrupted.

The family wants to understand,
but as much as they want to,
they won't listen.
Is understanding overstated?

Do they want to help;
or, do they just want to seem
like good parents?
Shouldn't they listen?

Instead of hearing a sentence
they claim in defense,
"I think you're trying to
get attention!"

They don't want to understand.
They want to keep thinking
that they're perfectly fine:
that their daughter isn't a freak.

But if they cared they would
try. Try to make sense of
her feelings and needs.
They would want her better.

However, they sit;
they ignore her;
they insult her and call it jokes;
and she is left to feel

Broken
Mistreated
Depressed and
Unlovable.

When she sees the therapist
they signed her for,
she tells how she feels,
but is told that she isn't

the only person with issues.
Her feelings are belittled,
and her life has gone to shit.
And no one seems to know why.

"We have given you everything!"
The family cries and cries,
but it's not because their daughter is broken.

They cry because she has ruined
their reputation.
She makes them look
bad.

So she sits and reads or writes.
When it comes to night,
she's trying to sleep,
but the tears start to leak

and she can't help but sob into the darkness.
The tears don't stop as she continues to the bathroom.

The lights are dim as she stares
at her reflection.
She wonders how she became this,
this monster;

and she starts to rummage.
She goes through every
cabinet and drawer.
She has this desire for something.

And she's searching up until
she finds exactly
what she wanted:
a way out.