It is hard being a child,
let alone an adult.
I hate growing up.
I always hated the thought of it,
of leaving childhood behind—
when it was never a place
I could rest.
I was promised something better—
a new life beyond that god-awful trailer,
where the walls were too thin
to contain the hurt.
I was promised love,
safety,
a body and mind
without bruises.
I was promised the world.
But promises are just words,
and words crumble under fists.
I am not ungrateful for what I have,
but I am ungrateful
for how I was raised—
how I was brought into this world
only to be broken by it.
Adoption was supposed to be a rescue,
but even kindness can wear a mask.
And when the masks fell,
the truth cut deeper
than any wound I’d known before.
Now, I carry more stories,
more bruises
from my adopted parents
than my biological ones.
More words screamed at me,
until I was so weak,
I wanted to leave.
A child, eight years old,
should never think about dying.
Parents should be a sanctuary,
a refuge.
Mine were a battlefield.
I learned to fear growing up—
to fear failure,
to fear never being enough.
I have accepted it all:
the blows,
the scars,
the pain repackaged as love.
Because love
was something foreign
until I met my first true friend,
my first real love.
With family,
there was only war.
And in their house,
I counted the days
I thought about dying—
more than I can recall.
They failed to protect me,
to shield me from others’ harm,
and their answer
was always the same—
an empty hug,
a hollow “It’s going to be okay.”
But they never meant it.
In every argument,
they used my scars as weapons,
ripped open old wounds
just to watch me bleed.
If they understand the weight of trauma,
why do they
bring it up
to bury me deeper?
Do they really love me?
I don’t understand,
and I don’t think
I ever will.
Through this poem, I confront the false promises of family and the idea that growing up leads to healing. Instead, my adoptive family—meant to be my sanctuary—became a source of lasting trauma, fundamentally altering how I see love, safety, and myself.
