Did you really have to change,
the moment I turned 11?

How the days we'd spend together,
suddenly turned into trying
to ignore each other
and screaming in the kitchen?

Maybe one day,
you'd see what I feel
and what I tried to convey.

How I drowned in my own thoughts
as a mere child,
while you were busy
fighting with mom,
or scrolling on the endless feed
your phone provides,
which hopes you rot.

I guess it wasn't for me to speak,
to tell you what it really meant
to raise someone,
or how to love properly.

But could I really blame you,
if that was all you'd seen as a kid?
passing on the poison given to you
that deepened the scars,
causing your unhealed wounds to bleed out,
while you knew nothing on what to do with it.

I didn't wish for anything grand
or the materialistic things
you ask me to be grateful for
I just needed you to understand.

To listen to me talk
about my day,
or ask me why I was upset
instead of yelling at me
to stop looking so annoyed and grey,
every waking moment.

You always make a point
to ask me why I changed,
from the sweet little girl you knew,
to whatever I've become now.
perhaps, did you ever stop to think--
why?

if you don't want a child
to grow up,
and become someone
what reason is there to raise it at all?

I suppose,
at one point in life
I'll learn to forgive you.

But all that comfort I yearned
and still do most of the time,
has yet to be returned.

It waits in the silent, dark place
between your anger and mine.

well, Dad,
did you really have to change?

The feeling of nostalgia is so foreign,
yet so wistfully timeworn.
like a photo of your ancestors
you've never met,

Or books written
in a once spoken language,
you cease to understand.

Such as a worn out toy,
that at one time brought joy
to a young child's heart.

Or the scent of a cherished candle,
kindling the remnants
of a distant, elysian land.

It's like a place you've never been
and will probably never be,
but the silent warmth it provides
is enough to put your weary eyes to sleep.

Reminiscing old, long-lost memories
that we once lived for,
is like pressing on bruises
that are not yet healed.

The bittersweet pain of our reverie,
seeks to mingle
with the weary, blurred lines
of the so-called 'peace'
we've come to accept.

Maybe it’s not the silence
or the yearning for what's long gone,
but the desire to at least,
for once, feel something
in this slow-burning,
hope-filled fever dream.

The storm that once
overtook my soul ceases,
a soft zephyr taking its place.

I gaze above as the Sun
reaches its zenith;
away from all the chaos
I yearn to leave behind.

All that could be heard now,
were the echoes of blazing thunder,
blurred into the faded hums
of a lullaby I once cherished.

Would it be wrong
to attempt painting the blank canvas
that's been sitting in my attic
for longer than I've had it?

To witness the sky paint itself
shades you've never seen;
blooming with thorns of yearning
as your gaze turns away?

Or to be drowned
by the soft reflection
of worldly glee,
as the moon begins to fall?

Oh, tell me --

Is it really wrong
to pour your heart out,
when you've never had anything
to pour at all?

Memories are what we would call
the ephemeral hues
on the canvas of time,

the intricate outlines
of painstaking work
seeming a blur from the distance;

all blending into the faded echoes
of our past regrets.

Perhaps, the one sole star
that we wished upon as kids,
wasn't ever about the glowing speck
in the seemingly endless sky above.

All it took
were a few wakeful nights,
to realize--
it was, and always had been,
you.