She looked at me once and told me that this sadness and panic is hereditary. That it runs in both parts of my blood and now it has run into my brain and it just keeps flowing and flowing and flowing.
We aren't a tight knit family. We're more like a spacey crochet pot holder that flakes out when it gets too heated. We're held together by all of these different colors of damn thread. We're literally just hanging on by a thread. Or ten. The blue thread is our sadness. The orange is our anger. The hot pink is our blood. The yellow is our memories and the lime green is our what-we-hope-to-be future. We're crumbling and burning and we blame each other for it all and my mom screams how the pot and kettle are both fucking black but she fails to see she's the problem too.
She told me once it was hereditary.
When my sister went to therapy.
When I asked for it. When I asked to go.
She told me no.
I've heard blood is thicker than water but blood suffocates quicker and I can't breathe.
I'm reaching my hand up to be pulled out, only for her to push my face down deeper.
She told me it's hereditary.
For them,
For her.
For me?
Guess I'm not part of this lineage.
I never wanted to be, anyway.
YOU ARE READING
The Swallows and the Sunsets
PoetryI tend to find meanings in things not intended to have one.
