Three years ago,
home wasn't home anymore.
When your front door step isn't the same
or your secret hide outs don't exist furthermore,
it isn't home.

"Home is where the heart is",
my mother once said.
She told me to be happy because we are together as a family.
But what happens when
family isn't family furthermore.

More than three years ago
family wasn't family anymore.
When alcohol,
hospital visits,
poverty,
and pain seeped through the cracks of our roof,
we all broke apart like
shards of a broken glass.

***** lies drip from the walls
on the foundation we call home now.
Anger unleashes through their mouths and hands.
"Forget its" have become a process for breathing.

Three years ago, my lungs filled with holes.
They are rotting with the time and tearing apart by the hands of, not only my demons, but everyone else's.
These demons sense my weakness,
my vulnerability.
So they feed off of my broken eyes and make their way in through the cracks.

Three years ago I lost home.
Family.
And myself.
Where is the heart now, mother?

In The Broken House.

My tears stain the pages of my farewell
Ink smudges against my skin
I sign my name at the bottom
Besides a "Goodbye"
I read over my words
"I love you's" running across the lines.
"Please dont cry." smudged on the sides.
"I'm sorry." written everywhere.
And your name is placed carefully in between.
So this is my farewell.
I love you.
Please don't cry.
I'm sorry.
Goodbye.

A letter to The Child Whose Life I Shaped

I pulled that trigger.
I loaded the bullet that changed your life.
Did I think?
No.
I was purely trying to save my own life.
No.
I don’t know where your doll is.
No.
I can’t help your dad.
No.
I can’t get you out of that dark room.
I am so sorry.
I mean,
sorry won’t bring back your doll.
Sorry won’t take that missile off course.
Sorry won’t make the men stop “visiting.”
Sorry won’t do a **** thing,
I can never take back my actions.
I know that I broke you.
I flipped your life upside down and turned it inside out.
I don’t know your name.
I don’t know your favorite color.
If I could go back,
and get to know you,
your favorite food and how old you are,
maybe I would have laid my life down for you.
It is too late to do that.
Too late to save your parents.
And your doll.
And your childhood purity.
No.
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know that I was shaping your life.
No.
I just didn’t want to know.
Didn’t want to think about it.

Sincerely,
The Man Who Drastically Changed Your life

A letter to the man who gave me this life

Did you know,
when you pulled the trigger,
that that bullet would give me a new life?
Did you even know my name?
I am Maryam.
I am Dima.
I am Agnes.
I am Charles.
I am 6 million kids affected by you.
Do you know where my doll is?
She is the only one who wouldn’t leave,
if she were here.
I left her at home,
have you bombed my house yet?
Please!
I am only 11.
I am only 10.
I am only 12.
I am only 16.
I am only a child.
Just a child.
Can you help my daddy?
He only got out of the car for a minute,
when there was a loud bang.
In the quiet,
all I could see were my daddy’s boots.
His face was so white,
his hands getting colder.
He is staring at me without seeing me.
God!
He is dead!
Why would you do this?
These shots,
they haunt my dreams.
When you pulled the trigger,
did you know that I would jump--
by simple sound of a door closing?
I was planting pumpkins.
We were going to make pie.
But now, I am starving.
Stuck in a dark room.
The men come in,
I don’t understand…
Why?!?!
I am only a small girl.
I am only a small boy.
You make fear burn,
as passionately as love once did.

Love,
The Child With No Parents (Thanks)