it's always nice
to start your tuesday morning off
with a panic attack
from a stale memory
that slips through your dreams
often unnoticed
but not today.

the most frightened i have ever been in my life
was not that one time i was almost kidnapped in africa
(it really did happen, i'm not making **** up),
it was when we drove in the driveway
and you weren't there,
mom.
the most frightened i have ever been
ever
was when i came home
to no one
on june 22nd
2011.

skip ahead six days
(not even a week, thanks for ******* waiting)
and i wake up
to a sheriff in my kitchen
slapping my father
with an order of protection

fast forward
ten minutes
ten garbage-bagged
dusty
boxing
stuffing
dragging minutes
and we're gone.
that big
old
falling down yellow house
that i spent my entire life in
all my things
and half my family
have been taken from me
and i never even got to say
goodbye.

next three months
i don't have a home
staying at my married sister's
who really doesn't want us there
every night
an angry, crazed phone call
i beg you to come home
to tell me where you are
to let me talk
to my four youngest siblings
who you have stolen...
i pleaded with you,
mom.
i begged you to come back to me.
but you didn't care.

sometime during that first christmas
i became a cutter
because i couldn't deal
with the panic attacks
imagining you leaving me
and never coming back
all over again.
and that christmas
wasn't christmas
it was some cheap
flimsy
knock off
that knocked me off
balance.
i almost lost it
that day.

five months later
we get
kicked out of my sister's
rent a house
in an unfamiliar town
just me and dad
now.
so suddenly dropped
in a place i knew not how to interact in
new
everything.
let's just add
another complex
how about some
displacement
for the mix?

court dates
a hideous lawyer
her name fitting her job description
sue
i can still see her face
more monster than human
laughing with my mom
when we
lost.

that day
in court
you broke me.
that was it.
when i talked
of the goodness of my family,
my father,
me
you lied.
right to my face,
mom.
and i
hate you
for
it.

even now
two years later
i cannot bear it when you hug me
i'm a fake
through and through
you should see my face
when you kiss my cheek,
mom.
i can't stop it
me
from hating you
from hating what you did
to Elayna, John, Miriam
and little Jesse
who was only five
and will not remember
ever having his dad
or
me.

mom,
i wish you knew
how this feels
you wouldn't be able to stand it
because you're weak
and manipulative
and a liar
the only reason i'm still here
is because i cannot break
those four children's hearts
all over again
they've been
through enough...
but it's days like these
i wish i had no ties
i wish i could get away from the lies
i wish i could finally be at peace
i wish i could

die