my parents never knew
they never knew that the wooden door of the room they always shut me out of 
when they wanted to "have an adult conversation"
wasn't as good at absorbing the venom they spit at each other as they thought it was
and I heard every word they screamed
and tasted every drop of hate that seeped between the cracks in their voices

and I never told my parents
I never told them 
that I liked the way hate tasted
I liked the way it stung my lips
kind of how
they liked the way it burned each other's hearts
and corroded the memory of the love they once had 
and I let these malicious words tumble around in my head,
breathed them in and blew them off my lips 
like a kiss
of death

and that day you were yelling
it was the same way my mother cursed at my father
and as a broken family's lonely daughter
I did the first thing I thought of
I listed off the vicious vocabulary my parent's never meant to teach me
and I knew that 
if this was a test, I'd made an A plus
as I watched the friendship between us 
crash to the ground and I just stood there because
that's what my father always does 
and everyone says that we're just the same the two of us

with tears in your eyes, I watched you 
turn away and I swear to god I had deja vu 
because you looked just like my mother did the day she 
filed for  a divorce and ripped our family away from me

and that same day your mother found you at the bottom of the stairs
with a still heart and a fixed stare
and that same day I realized that words spoken in such a way
could not only end a marriage but a life
I mean stop a beating heart 
and that same day I promised myself 
that I would never again yell,
never curse at anyone the way my parents taught me
and that is the reason why I am quiet in a crowded room
not because I am intimidated or shy
I'm just trying to swallow 
the snake my parent's fed me long ago