The Words I Will Speak

Stairs

I remember sitting on the stairs

The corner where the stairs curved

And the hard voices that emanated from the kitchen

How my grandparents yelled at each other

Argued about how their precious son

Was a failure of a father

How his daughter refused to leave the stairs

Because she was hard-headed

And had decided she was going to wait for him

There in the stair covered in rough grey carpeting

I remember the feeling of that carpeting

Even after my grandfather's passing that carpet is still there

My grandmother hasn't changed it

Like it holds the memories of my father and grandfather

But I the daughter of a sick man

Sat on the stairs until my dear mother came to get me

She held me in her arms

And I pushed that weekend deep within me

Buried it with my mother's love

And all the good memories I made because of her.

But those stairs, that carpeting

Every time I see myself sitting there

Like a hard-headed fool.

I never talked about to my mother

Or anyone else

Like it was a shameful defeat to do so.

It felt like I would admit that I was hurt

But I was hurt

Plagued with the knowledge

That my father did not love me

As much as my mother claimed he did.

Fifteen years I wasted a weekend

Waiting for a man who did not truly love me

as he should have.