Dear Parents (Part 1)

Dear parents

I would formally introduce myself but honestly, You should know me, I am your dysfunctional child, your troublesome teen, your ungrateful brat I'm not wearing it with pride but you kept calling me that And the constant repetition of your vocalization Has been enough to give me the name tag I now wear around your friends And lately I realised I don't know where this started but I truly hope that one day it ends Let me stop right there Because right now these are just vibrations in the air that I speak from the mouth that you gave me And there's so much you've given me, trust me I see Thank you for a house, food, bed, clothes, warmth and life But I'm tired of just having a house, I need a home The food you feed me day by day doesn't fill me up The bed you provide doesn't mean I get any rest And I have just the right amount of clothes to hide what I hate and show what's best Which goes hand in hand with the warmth covering my skin but that's about as deep as it gets And even though this life has so much to give, sometimes I just want it to end But I don't want to blame you I've seen you breakdown and cry, I know you do I've felt your every dream shatter and hopes die As I took a turn you never thought I'd try But the only thing I have left to do is try And that's all I ever could do I came into this world without the proper training and preparation I wasn't ready for my first steps or my first heartbreak and both seemed equally impossible And now I've taken so many steps I don't even need to think But every heartbreak still pushes me to the brink And when I'm standing on that ledge I still need you I don't need you to be perfect, I just need you Because you think you won't make a difference but you do A hug could be the stitches for the tears in my soul A smile could be the nurturing of my own A few words could be the mending of my cracked being And if all else fails, listen

Silence can say more than a thousand confessions, could heal more than a hundred abrasions, and mean more than anyone can know Because I've become fluent in mute and perfected the art of biting my tongue So if I speak, hear what I say because it might just leave my lips in the right way I've hidden countless things that needed to be said in the folds under my breath Hoping that the moment my lips part I don't spill my heart Because I might just wash away the foundations we've convinced ourselves stand strong As if the trembling, crumbling individuals we consist of could stand together while fighting each other Our house has been divided into the parts we label for ourselves Sister, mother, father, brother Stand strong and never alone but here I am just standing on my own Fighting for the pieces of who I should be But I never learned to look in the mirror and love what I see And I'm sorry if you think this letter is just about me Because this is war and none of us leave unscathed A battle we weren't supposed to be fighting Against an enemy we never saw coming I thought we would be more than brothers in arms

Sincerely Yours, A broken heart from an intact home.

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