If it weren’t for my new family, I wouldn’t be alive today
When I was young, I thought of the different ways I could end it all,
I thought about slitting my wrists, like I saw someone else try,
I thought about a gun because my grandpa did and my dad threatened to do the same,
I even thought about drugs because my dad had so many around.
I wouldn’t be here because I didn’t think I deserved any better,
And everyone I knew made me feel like that.
I couldn’t trust my own family and if I couldn’t trust them,
Then how could I expect to trust anyone?
I thought of ways to end it before I was even 8.
No child should think like that, but I did.
My mind and family made me feel worthless,
I thought nobody would miss me, to this day, I still feel like that sometimes.
I didn’t want to live because I felt disgusting,
I didn’t speak up when my brother walked into my room every night,
I didn’t speak up when he made me shut up and take my clothes off,
I didn’t speak up for years… I still haven’t.
I didn’t speak up.. But I could have,
Couldn’t I?
I was only 4 the first time I learned how little I could trust people.
I was only a child and a babysitter I trusted would walk into my room at night,
Take me to the living room, and make me touch him when I don't want to.
I didn’t speak up… Why didn’t I ever speak up?
It made me feel so stupid and feel like I let it happen,
I didn’t want any of it but they didn’t let me have a choice..
It was only a couple years later, My oldest brother tried.
This time.. I spoke up!
I showed my dad proof of what he was trying to do to me,
But I felt terrible because my dad basically disowned him…
It made me want to die knowing I hurt them, I didn’t want to hurt either of them.. But i did,
All I do is hurt the people I love the most.
I decided then and there.. My dad won’t find out about my other brother…
But what good did that do? It only hurt me more in the end…
I didn’t think I mattered to anyone,
And they only kept proving it to me by leaving me or hurting me.
My dad chose the drugs and the fix,
My bio mom chose the drugs and my brother over me.
Nobody even noticed if I was home or not
I still tend to wonder how long it would take everyone to notice.
Would anyone cry?
How would my family have reacted if I took my life when I wanted to?
Would they know they were the reason?
Would they just say I was being dramatic?
I couldn’t talk to my dad about it because he had his own ‘problems’…
I didn’t make the cut for his top priorities..
I never thought I would for anyone,
But that was before I met my new family,
They helped me realize that I really do matter.
For a while, I still questioned if they really liked me and why,
But I finally started realizing, after they put up with me for so long.
They saw me at my worst and instead of putting me further down and leaving me,
They helped me get up to my best.
If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be alive.
Ever since I met them, I haven’t ever thought of ways to end it.
They put up with me when everyone else would leave,
I would try to push them away by arguing because i thought they would leave,
I still do that to this day sometimes because I'm scared.
But I have finally started realizing that they are stuck with me
And I am stuck with them, but I am not complaining.
I finally know what it feels like to be a part of a family.
It means staying by each other no matter what and never betraying each other.

My mother doesn’t hug me                                                                                             but I feel her arms around me when she quietly hands me my favourite chocolate bar
My mother doesn’t kiss me                                                                                             but I feel her lips on my forehead when she takes care of my injuries
My mother doesn’t tell me she loves me                                                                           but I read it in every “I'm home” text
My mother doesn’t ask me much                                                                                      but she notices everything
My mother may seem cold to many                                                                            because her warmth is reserved for me alone

The dormitory never sleeps.
Lights hum like insects,
shadows twitch across the floor,
and every night I remember,
this is not where I am visiting.
This is where I live.
This is where I am kept.

The other girls go home.
They vanish into weekends,
into kitchens filled with noises
and smell
and warmth.
They complain about parents,
about rules,
about being seen too much.

I would give anything
to be seen too much.
Instead, I return to my bed,
my small metal drawer of belongings,
my ceiling with its web of cracks.
It stares down at me every night,
silent,
unchanging,
a reminder that nothing waits
beyond these walls.

My parents are smoke now.
They pass through my thoughts like strangers.
Their voices are static,
distant,
sometimes I wonder
if they’ve already forgotten me.
Maybe I was too easy to let go.
Maybe I was never worth holding onto.

I don’t plan for the future.
The future is a locked door.  
The future is another hallway
that leads back here.
I have stopped imagining anything else.

Sometimes, in the quietest hours,
a thought flickers,
a cruel kind of hope:
one day I’ll grow wings.
But even as it comes,
I know it isn’t true.
Even birds fall.
Even birds are crushed beneath tires
on roads no one bothers to cross.

So I fold myself smaller each night,
make myself a shadow
so no one will notice how much I’m missing.
I practice the art of disappearing,
learning to dissolve into silence,
to be overlooked,
to vanish without the world
ever pausing to ask why.

And if I write it down,
it isn’t for saving.
It’s proof I was here,
that once there was a girl in this building
who waited,
and waited,
and was never collected.

familiar
there's no space like home
no company like a handmade family
no way of love like the handsome routine
  no elbow room like the familiar
a spell of life    til
     an itch takes to the brain
and inches of ***** tape spool
ideas of wetter play
     haemorrhage and pool
            and it's jostled