I’m sorry—
but did I grow up in a different house to you?
Because all I remember is drowning,
the kind that looks normal from the outside,
but steals your breath one quiet inch at a time.
All I remember is fear.
Not the storybook kind,
the kind that hides in the corners of a father’s face
when his anger cracks open—
teeth showing,
that animal look that says
run.
And we did.
Because our mother told us to.
Because she saw the storm first.
Because safety meant distance,
meant silence,
meant survival.
I’m sorry—
but where was the laughter you said lived there?
Because I missed it.
I remember arms around me, yes—
my mother’s, wrapped tight, warm,
a shelter I didn’t know was a squeeze,
a python tightening with love and fear
woven so tightly together
I couldn’t tell one from the other
until I stepped back
and saw the bruising.
Did we grow up in the same house?
The one where children became buffers,
mediators,
shields?
Where I stood between two grown adults
and called it normal—
stopping the rage,
stopping the spiral,
stopping the man who tried to destroy himself
while we pretended it was just another night.
I’m sorry—
but why did I think he was the one in trouble?
Why did I think he was the one who needed saving?
Why did I carry his sorrow like scripture
while mine bled through the seams?
Fuck—
we all needed help.
Every one of us.
That house…
God, it was smoke.
Slow.
Thick.
Filling the rooms inch by inch
while we lay there,
waiting for the burn
or the silence
or the ending
that would keep us “together.”
A family held by blood
—or so they said.
But blood didn’t bind us.
Shame did.
Fear did.
Duty did.
And underneath it all,
shackles.
Cold, quiet metal
around each of our ankles,
telling us this was home—
when really, it was a cage.
Fuck—
did I get born the same age as you?
Seven years apart,
and yet I swear I arrived already older,
already watching,
already shielding,
already broken open.
I came into this world
barely breathing,
they tell me—
a birth threaded with danger,
a beginning soaked in the idea
that I caused the damage
just by existing.
To be continued...
Thank you for being here with me through telling my truths, I will be sharing this in parts. This helped me get out all my emotions, anger, sadness and guilt I felt holding onto a childhood that I was told about rather than the one i knew.
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