All these broken kids, want a parent's pride
But once you hear those words
They still fall short, in the void so wide
Spent your whole life, questioning why.
I can't blame me, you barely know me
And for every night that I felt incomplete
I did my best to try, try so hard to never be you
If only you knew, I hope some day you see.
The only real conversation we ever had,
Was me having hard times, you said you're in therapy,
Even then you didn't care for me.
You felt bad for a moment, but I've spent 15 years in a moment.
For every chance you're given you drop it.
Time for a game, time for a job, time for a second marriage.
Time for your children? Those washed up excuses are getting lame.
Forget it, I'm healed, here's for the rest of us.

For the mother, getting beaten and bruised
Don't stay for the kids
Leave for the kids
A marriage is the least you have to lose.
No matter the hobby, the job, the passion
For the kids, try to match their excitement.
My generation isn't lazy, we're outcasted.
An Internet of people saying your dreams can't happen.
For the kids, build them up, make hope outlast them.
For the mother, verbally bashed to feel useless
It's simple, you aren't useless.
For the father, stay active, protect your family,
You do matter.

I'll cut the poetic verse to tell a short story and I hope it gets passed around. When I was ten, my sister was fourteen. My parents split up and while I was young, I remember a lot. I remember struggling to get by with my mom and sister. My father was quickly in a new relationship. His soon-to-be new wife and he would spread a million stories about how she talked badly of him which even got around to my teachers in school. It's funny, she never said anything bad about him, we didn't want to go with him on the weekends because he was pushing for us to sleep at his new girlfriend's house. It got to a point where when we would call my father, the new woman would pick up the phone and tell us not to call him. So many years later, my sister and I still keep an open door for him. We are facebook friends and whatever (I don't have his phone number, I messaged him a few years ago for it and he ignored it). Occasionally, I get a message asking how I am and I always respond, he reads my response and never writes back again for months or a year. He wishes me a happy birthday and father's day on my Facebook to keep up appearances or something but truthfully I don't know him at all. My sister got a house a couple years ago only a short distance from where he lives and even after many invites, he still hasn't  visited. This is the same guy that to strangers seems like such a fun guy, I've never met. And every part of this involving me really doesn't matter but, I wish he would see where my sister lives and I wish he gave a **** about her becuase she actually cares that he wants nothing to do with her. And to any part of this that is called fabricated, I remember everything and so does she.

Suburbia greeted me with pale hands in my late teens.
She was a wasteland in a mini skirt; in its’ own right it could be called a Cave with Plato egregiously driving his brand-new Prius 90 miles an hour saying “this is really living as long as you don’t look back” and all you can do is nod your head vigorously because the twisted **** that had settled surreptitiously in your baby lungs was giving you daylight hallucinations. My endeavors didn’t end there when they should have.
There was something uncanny about the way streetlights gave you the eternal glare. Of creating ordinary neighborhood streets appear like you’ve been there before in a dream, in another body. In a dazed stupor the sounds of a television and a light coming from a garage is forgiving in your misguided attempts to be comfortable in a foreign space. It could almost feel like home when your repressed trauma keeps resurfacing while you’re trying to introduce yourself. Almost.
In these polite badlands with everything uniformed the people I met were always trying to stand out from the serene landscapes. Sitting in plaid couches I was giddy playing the nihilist. Rerun episodes of Portlandia playing but all I remember from that smoky room were brown pants that looked extremely crisp to the touch and I wanted to reach out my hands and see if they would crunch under the paperweight of my heavy palms. I didn’t but I’m sure they would’ve emitted the sound of potato chips being eaten in a frenzy.
When I wasn’t walking through dark rooms feeling through what could have been hallways, a family’s living room or the cool gates of hell I was meandering my way through drowsy parties where boys with the names like Dusty and Slaughter were prevalent. Each with their own bizarre story about how they stole their parents’ money one night and took off spontaneously. Driving all the way to Nevada with nothing but half a tank of gas and one pack of cigarettes. You could almost pinpoint their personalities by the type of cigarettes they smoked. Most of them holding different colored American Spirits. Had I been smarter I would have asked for a light and a smoke. Never mind that I was always deadly afraid that I had some undiagnosed lung disease and that asphyxiation was my biggest fear or that I had a pack of Marlboro black menthols in my purse that were over a year old. I found my corner sitting in a worn outdoors chair. The ones where the armrest comes built in with a cupholder. My beer ice cold sitting awkwardly sideways while I tried to consider why the host of the party was wealthy yet so hostile. My favorite party game was the one where I took hit after hit of joints being passed around until I was crazy glued to my chair and my brain started to feel like a lagoon that continued to melt into a Campbell’s soup I once had as a child. Everyone completely unaware of the horror that the house had become to me. Somewhere in the distance I was acutely aware of who I would go home with, why my ventures into the suburbs had sparked my intrigue in the first place. The only reason why I had endured feeling like a spider watching a **** film and why I had lost my virginity just a day before. I was a displaced specimen thinking about her ***** in a room of 30 people or more.

I had just settled in for a nice hot soak.
I slid into the bubbles and opened my coke.
when what to my wondering ears did I hear
but a small playful voice drawing near.

When around the door I saw him appear
I knew in a moment that it was my Dear.
Quickly he approached me only to say
The kids have poopies and need changed straight away.

He stood there smiling with his eyebrow raised
I laughed and sat completely unfazed.
The moments between us were quiet and tense
I was waiting to see what was his defense

It felt like forever but only seconds had passed
When I knew that I would have to get out of my bath
Slowly I stood, shivering and cold
Wanting to put him in a choke hold

I climbed the stairs, naked and wet
Knowing this night, I will never forget.
The morale of the story lies herein
Check on the kids before I begin.

By Arcassin Burnham


Beautiful and unique snowflakes fall from heavens
And each and every one of y'all had fallen in deliverance,
The kids that were always quiet and a lil crazy in disguise,
But will open up hearts even when they were despised,
And when the others bully you,
Make you feel like an disgrace,
The emptiness consuming you,
To make you fail at any pace,
The memories will go away,
Thinking nothing will ever change,
The memories won't go away,
Almost nothing ever changed,
Feeling like no one had cared about the things wrong in your life,
I would have always been there for you anytime, day or night,
I hope you sit up in the stars and embrace life eternally,
The memories are dead and gone,
And now you can be free.

love is giving them your last bite of food
   because you know it's their favorite
love is holding their hand when everyone crosses the street
   because they don't have a partner
love is hugging them goodbye before you leave
   even though you know you'll see them tomorrow
love is hiding in the castle (playground) during recess
   because you want to play for five more minutes
love is being the first person you say hello to when you get to school
   even before you say goodbye to your parents
love is that feeling you get in your stomach when you see them smile
   it feels like the way marshmallows and candy makes you feel
love is having somebody who can make you smile.
   even if you have a bad day
love is the stuff that people write poetry about

I'm losing them.

The endless walks

where we made up songs to entertain ourselves.

The boring car rides

where we annoyed each other to **** the time.

The late evenings

where we whispered our darkest and deepest secrets

-that now don't matter anymore- to each other.

The big promises and the silly bets

we made with our pinks.

The little contests in the park, at school, at home, in the streets, everywhere.

I didn't see how much those moments meant to me.

Until I realised that I'm slowly

losing them.

l.t.