I am a product of my parents pain
Holding the weight of their trauma on my shoulders no older than nine.
I'd be lying if I said I regret the roles I played
in the chaos they create

We were only little kids, up the stairs not far away,
watching the cracks run up the wall, breathing in menthol
this was our fate

And from that day, the chaos insued, mini mommy #2
sleepless nights, blood shot eyes. Just like the baby was mine.
Since day 1 it's what I was expected to do.

My baby brother was no less than 2
The night I awoke to screaming and banging,
I knew the role it was time to assume,
I rushed down in a panic to grab him out of their room.
I froze in fear watching the anger trickle down their faces and seeing the way my father paces.
My friends were all dreaming in their beds
while I was on the phone with Mamaw trying to use my head,
To get out this house, before we're dead.
In the morning when they all got ready for math I started to buckle his carseat so fast,
ready to leave this mess
I just want my baby brother to get some rest.

They're screaming through the walls again,
yet my little sister silently sleeps through their soundly battles
while I hear my brother cry for the 19th time
Making my way downstairs
Peering into the room
just to get ****** into their doom, forced to choose a side.
Becoming apart of the fight that night made them make amends
finding a common enemy means they can be friends.
I just wanted quiet
I just wanted peace.
I just wanted calm and for my baby brother to sleep.
I swear I'm a good mother to him I swear it's so true,
I know that I am because I'm doing more than you.
I need my baby to sleep. It's good for him, you see?
So you have to find common ground by villainizing me
for a little bit of tranquility,
maybe we can all get some sleep.

My father is full of rage
and my mother seeks control from her anxiety,
they were a dangerous combination of chemicals
causing me to sizzle over slowly, symptomatically
Ruining my brain functions,
systematically.
Though, I have gained from them every part they hate about themselves.
Searching to find their insecurities in me
but can't relieve myself of their generational wealth of trauma,
so maybe we can just pretend it's all okay,
just for a day.

I can't untagled the parts of them that are within me.
I am forever bound and chained by their past and pain,
there will always be pieces of them that are pieces of me.
I feel my father's rage and I seek my mother's control,
yet I'm grieving them like they're dead,
while trying to picture what I'd really do about their death.
The weight of their mistakes push down tightly on my chest.

I don't like confrontation,
but I'm staring the sun straight in the face
Begging you both to love me properly
Praying for a life where you guys kept me safe.
I just wanted to be your kid.
Not a piggy bank vault of hidden secrets
forced to keep collecting and harboring your emotional baggage, just for you to forget
Leaving me with lockets of memories
That will forever remain hard to piece.

Beyond the hills, they understood me,
In the quiet of my mind, I am seen.
Then my eyes are ripped open, the world hits me like a wave, the anger thick and metallic in my mouth. My pulse races, my skin aches — everything feels too loud, too bright, too much. I can’t escape, and the weight of it all is crushing me, like a  drop of water dripping constantly.

I was not a problem child,
I was a child with a problem That caused me to process the world in patterns and pieces instead of as a whole. I wasn't a puzzle I just needed stability in the home.

Around the river and down the path they supported me
But I'm laying in bed instead
Paralyzed in my own skin, stuck in the chaos of my mind.
Hearing their words on repeat and rewind
Lazy lazy lazy
Try harder try harder try harder
You're a liar liar liar
But I'm trying my hardest I'm doing my best  and the weight of their disbelief presses heavily on my chest. It's thick and suffocating they can't see the mental war inside of me, just the absence of my results. I regret to inform you that It wasn't laziness but invisibility that was a plague to me.


Even when I mixed up my letters and struggled to sit still. I could never be quite and my mind spun like a windmil, running 3 miles a minute,  my mind has never known silence and peace. Though somehow to them  it was always a calculated plan. I would manipulate them with ease.

Fear claws at me, a constant gnawing,
My head starts spinning, and the weight of failure bears down.
I avoid, I freeze, my mind a storm, afraid of failure and afraid to try creating a tornado of paralysis in my mind
I try to speak, but my words are tangled in knots.
no matter the effort and energy I use
It always seems to be reduced, in their minds,
It's all a tactical plan, a game I play to illict attention, even if I lack having an attention span.


When my brain can't comprehend the world in a typical way, I'm told I just need to grow up and deal with the pain.

Lacking the ability to thrive as a child, no one to support the way my brain had been wired, falling deeper and deeper into the role of a liar.

I'm too smart to struggle
I don't apply myself and I lack the ability to juggle multiple tasks
They swear I'm lazy
And I know I'm not good enough for the world they made for me
I can hardly talk to the cashier ladies
I need to improve my work ethic
I need to apply myself.
But what good is trying when you already know you're piling information on top of itsself, crashing and malfunctioning, the system creating coding errors, measured in dysfunction and despair.

Sitting on top of the tree, the branches hug me as I lean into them. I can't be lazy if I climbed all the way up here. I can't be dumb if I know how to get down. I know that what I feel is normalized as unproblematic in my parents town. I can see beyond my struggles and I know I have the ability to succeed. I excell in subject that are beyond me, even if I lack basic literacy and feel lonely.

Everything is normal nothing is symptomatic I'm just being dramatic I'm only a child and children like me can't have that.

Feeling the breeze hit me, and taking in all the shame, I struggle to understand myself and I lack the ability to make it a game. My struggles slip through the cracks and I'm always met with attacks. The fact remains the same that imposter will always be attached to my name

My feelings slip through my finger tips, like sand in the wind. I reach for them on the wheel, but the words dissolve before I grasp them, not even having names. only shapes, fleeting like shadows. Hiding behind the walls. There is not one word to describe this pain at all.

Failing to help regulate my constantly  unregulated body and speculating my motives. Constantly on the edge of our seats fighting for my mind to just be right. Hoping for us to all feel peace

Down by meadow surrounded by flowers, I hear the wind and I know the truth at last. I needed support and a helping hand. A routine and someone to try and understand. Someone to help me find peace within myself and not find chaos in their judgement . I wasn't the problem, I needed to be seen, not as a puzzle but as a whole piece. It was the world at hand not being built for a brain that  processes information like I can