Existing in a house with an alcoholic isn't quite existing. It's tiptoeing around corners and walking on broken glass. It's waiting for the bomb to drop with the closest shelter miles out of reach.

I try to shed my skin but it sticks like glue. It covers me in shame and pain and the irreversible smell of ***** and *****.

I don't exist. I just simply am.

I am the daughter of a drunkard.

I am covered in guilt.

I am.

I mold myself to fit into a box that's half my size. I rip my own words out of my own mouth so I don't hurt the feeling of the people who have mutilated mine.  

I haven't existed yet, but someday I will.

Mother, a specialist has called us,
he believes something is wrong, astray, askew,
but you tell me it's all no reason to fuss.
Mother, your words have caught onto me like the flu.
Mother, you're infecting me to become you.

Father, mother says we cannot go,
to neither the recommended counseling nor therapy,
and for some reason you agree,
but just yesterday you told me,
you resent what she has done to your children.

Mother, I am sorry you have overheard what I've told my dad.
I promise, I never meant to make you sad,
but now you're screaming that I'm glad.
Mother, I do not rejoice!
Please, stop putting these words in my mouth! It is your choice!

Mother, this ordeal can end.
Remember, you were once my friend?
Mother, I know I have grown to fourteen and now I should be more kind and more mature.
Still, you say, I am just mean and for my cold eyes and empty heart, there is no cure.
Mother, your words shape my world, despite my hesitance to believe them.

Mother, I am sorry that I sobbed three years ago because of your screams.
Mother, I am sorry that I turned my back on you while we both fell through countless seams.
Mother, forgive me, please, for I try my best and I am your daughter.
Mother, forgive me, please, for I try my best and I am not my father.

Father, I miss your defense.
But to expect your words in my good chance again is dense.
Father, I have made every excuse I can to make you the favorite parent.
But, father, my lies to myself are apparent.
Father, what happened to the days when your guarded this wretched child of myself from mother's verbal onslaught?
Forever I would have you for forever, I thought.

Father, you will die soon, because you do not care for your body.
Father, I cannot live without you beside me and my family.
Father, protect my brothers and my sisters just a few more years.
Father, don't leave me again yet. You are not him, do not run for a few more beers.

Mother, you brought to me an alcoholic.
Mother, you brought to me his precious child.
Mother, with this baby, now nearly four years old, I still frolic.
My beloved little sister.
But mother, the drunkard threatens to come to us again.
If he tries in court to steal my cherished sister, can we win?

Rapacious alcoholic, with each and every bone in my body, for you, I feel such loathing.

"A slave to your waters,
how I beg to kneel
and drink from you.

I feel so in control and powerful,
when under your influence.

Little do I realize,
how truly powerless I am,
when you're in me.

Under your grip,
with even one sip,
held so tight,
I have no life in sight."

Barkeep....another
Without ice
A double whiskey
It goes down nice
Feel the fire
That gentle heat
Barkeep...another
And keep it neat

A shot of whiskey
It's warm
not hot
You feel the fire
The bunring linger
Feel the fire
From one shot

You start out drinking
To **** the pain
You order one more up
Barkeep...again
The burning feeling
Inside your chest
You're still coherent
You're at you best

Time...it passes
Years go by
The fire's burning
You're gonna die
That burning feeling
Can't put it out
You move from whiskey
On back to stout

You can not stop it
The fire rules
Your eye's are red now
Red, runny pools
What once was pleasant
Now burns with pain
You can not stop it
Barkeep...again

You keep consuming
It's who you are
Half a bottle gone
You've gone too far
You can not taste it
You can not win
You can not put out
The Fire Within.

did you lose even a single night of sleep, the days i was tucked safely back at home with my mother?
was i anything more than an after-thought once you stopped seeing me?
a problem to be dealt with only once you were faced with it once again
did you ever miss me? or if not me, then the freedom to lay hands without repercussions?

did you think yourself an artist, with hands designed to create?
did you think because you made me that i was yours to hate?

when you streaked my canvas black and blue, did your reflection hurt or couldn't you look?
i bet you could, i bet you never had a second thought, i know you never had the capacity to feel or say sorry

your water colours hurt less than your acrylics, let me tell you this
i could wash away your water-blues with time and little white capsules
your acrylics took so much longer to dry, their consistency so much greater
their texture so much thicker, and stickier, and prone to staining
if they touched their fingers to the palettes you tucked away inside my brain, they'd come away covered
with hurt and guilt and shame, all these doubts and questions
purple, red and black and grey

did you dip your brush into that innocent creature's blood? the one you had me chuck
straight into the wheelie bin like you could so easily discard the lives you took?
if i'm shaking as i write this down, it's only because i remember that day with a clarity that scorns
my Achilles' heel is shovels, pellet guns and alcohol
i hope one day your bullets ricochet and when you treat your wounds you drown instead

red wine's no good for healing, anyway
but then i've never tried it, so what would i know? i'm different from you in every blessed way

all that i can do now is lay here and feel all of the hurt
and there is no way to escape it except to sleep
and i am laying here wishing that the sun would go away and that time would stop so i can lay here forever in the dark
a moment where i don't need to wake up and force myself to exist
the hurt gets worse
it gets worse
home alone once again and my bed is becoming too lonely where i can't even lay in it either

and you, where are you?
you are out and you are barely alive
and you're doing drugs and you're drinking yourself black
and everyone around you thinks that you're just having fun
when i know you drink because alcohol is your disease and you have to feed it even when you don't want to
you are sad
and you aren't here or happy
but none of them see
except for me

so i can't lay here
in peace
wondering what you are doing or if you are okay
and it shouldn't matter but it does more than anything
because you aren't wondering if i am okay

your lips are on the bottles tonight
and not on mine
and that alone is enough to destroy someone
because i love you
and your alcohol

it does not love you.

She took another sip of her fine feathered drink
I don't think this is a learned behavior
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
Blank stares following her body sways
Making mountains out of molehills
I take an attempt to persuade her to address the issue
Only leaves a temporary result to get us off her back
The weight on her back transfers to mine
All eyes on me to intervene again
Though my shell is hard, my inside is not

Hypocrisy to what you preach
Expecting standards of another
You, yourself can never reach

Guised as a victim in your speech
Painting yourself the saint
The all knowing prophet
When pointing fingers is all you teach

Your mirror is no more than a rose pane
In it your lacks shine as another man’s toll
Pleas for reason fall in vane
All collapsing at your need of control

Perched upon your pedestal
Passing judgement all the stay
At all costs emotionally vigil
For it’s always “Your Way”

Hypocrisy in what you teach
Learn to practice what you preach