My sweet blonde locks
danced in the four seasons,
they clashed on my
tan tinted skin,
and swam in the wind.
I got on my black tricycle
broom-broomed and
skitted down the sidewalk.
I should have kept peddling
not even turning to look back,
I should have never came back.

Eleven on was all a taste of hell,
I was living in it’s uncivil core.
It was nine of us surviving in
a three room apartment.
Once we had a good month,
but my dads drunk delusions
caused our happiness to decay
and free fall far away.
Our rent money was spent
on an unnecessary stereo.
We moved to the low-income,
well, my mother and myself.

My mother, she lost the other kids.
She started drinking on a daily basis.
I saw the weakness in my mother
I once saw in my father,
when I saw my father and
I began to see it in myself.
Cutting, we called it.
Relapsing and reminiscing.
Remembrance.
Pain upon pain,
Release choked my reality,
puncturing the heart of success.
Ease existed for only the moment,
the moment of consuming the toxic.
Pain upon pain that cannot be forgotten
Running through my veins,
Causing my body to tremble.
Pain upon pain,
I suffered.
They Suffered.

Recovery.
My father is in rehab,
Could it explain the long months
living without a response?
Could it explain the absence
Of his presence?
Could it explain the abandonment
I’ve felt for all the years of my life?
Could I explain it to my child
If it had been me?
Recovery or avoidance?
To avoid staying out of jail,
Because of the lack of support
A man has given his daughter?
I’m not sorry for myself,
I’m sorry for him.
I’m sorry he’s the way he is.
I’m sorry he doesn’t care.
I’m sorry he’s in love with the bottle
And the bottle doesn’t love us.
I’m sorry for everything.
I’m sorry for absolutely nothing!

I was alone a lot,
Suicidal and alone.
I couldn’t sleep,
so I wouldn’t sleep.
I filled my notebook with anger,
drew and painted pictures of pain.
I started skipping, slipping, sipping.
Inside I was screaming,
searching for a meaning.

Social services threatened to take me away,
for some reason I wanted to stay.
My mom was always crying,
inside I knew she was dying.
I wanted to take the pain away,
but there was nothing to say.
So I said nothing.

The absence of a male figure
One of the same and one older
hurt my heart heavily.
It cut me with a razor
burned hastily to my bones
without mercy
without feeling.
I realized things in life,
they happened and it’s okay.
As long as I can make it through
Each day and say that I’m okay
Everything will be,
Okay.