I cannot recall what it was like
to see my parents smile at one another.
I’m sure that it must have happened,
that I had to have borne witness to such an occasion at least once,
but when I peruse my thoughts and memories

for an image of my mother laughing
near my father,
or my dad grinning
at a joke my mom had cracked,

I come up short.

It’s easy to find the cookie-cutter
mirage
of their happiness,

it exists in the glossy photographs
that I don’t have the heart to do away with.

Now,
if asked,
it would be far simpler to talk about a fight,
about a night of arguments and yelling,
trials completely admissible
if not for the
quantity.

I always hear stories,
of dinner table dad jokes
and pasta appreciation,

and I always wonder
what those people are hiding.

Children of divorce learn so many lessons,
but namely,
they learn that there is no single person
who is not hiding something.
A closed door is a secret,
a locked door is a secret well kept.

A smile is defense mechanism and
nothing is real.

I suppose that’s it.
You stop feeling real.

I stopped feeling real eight years ago.

As though my emotions were replaced
with the urge to feel something.

Somehow I must have
located the off switch on my heart,
yet it continued to beat.

And all I could do was think
Why could I feel angry even
when I was smiling?

Why did I want I want to cry
after every time I laughed?

How come when my parents told me
they failed
I decided that it was my fault?

…

The days came when I stopped
Weeping
over the dead flowers of my childhood.

When I learnt to bask in the light
And the warmth
And the simplicity
of just being.

And instead of thinking
about the mistakes
and the fighting
and the fact that I had no dad jokes to share

I could instead think

that I wanted something better
for myself.