#mum issues

I missed many moments with you

that should have shaped me,

given me a form that fit the world.

But I sit here, belonging nowhere,

even though home should mean your arms.

I'm almost grown up,

but every night

I long for a goodnight kiss from you,

for you to wrap me in blankets and warmth,

to sing for me a soft lullaby.

I would have loved to have told you

about my first love,

carefully showing you my first poem,

your eyes should shine with pride.

I would have loved to have seen you

at my graduation,

but all I saw were other parents

smiling proudly into the cameras

with their lovely children.

On my graduation trip,

I wasn't picked up like the others.

No arms to welcome me,

just a lonely bus filled with cold.

I wish you were here with me,

but your arms welcome him and the alcohol,

a welcome guest in your darkness.

I never visit you in your thoughts,

there's only room for your poison and my siblings.

I grew up without you,

rarely seeing you,

your voice so far away on the phone.

But now I don't even have that anymore.

Now there's only the emptiness of your absence.

The worst part is, it was your decision.

Your words never reach me,

only my siblings.

I feel like an only child,

growing up without parents.

And there will be so many more moments

where you should be a part of it,

But damn, it's hard being at home 24/7 again, like when i was super unwell. Not just because it's so weirdly, wrongly, familiar, but because a lot of my coping mechanisms with my mum involve me being not here to have to deal with her. And unfortunately she does not cope well with being forced to stay home. So it's a perfect recipe for her driving me absolutely mad.

Tw: absent parents, domestic violence, alcoholism

Mom, I wish you'd had someone back then

who understood you.

But your cold fingers found a glass bottle,

your heart a boy who only pushed

your world further into darkness.

You were only 14 when you took your first sip,

when alcohol became your only solace.

I wasn't there then, but I wish I were,

I wish I could have stopped you

from destroying yourself like that.

Mom, you were still very young

when my brother was born,

not settled in life.

And yet three more children followed,

unplanned and unwanted.

Even when you carried life within you,

nothing could tear you away from your bottle,

but luck held us in its embrace.

You born me with silence, with void,

things who never left me,

you only showed me attention

when I almost died.

You couldn't care for us,

we lived in squalor,

clean clothes beautiful but so alien.

And even my brother was still young,

he took on the responsibility

while you continued to drink

to avoid the feelings from my fathers blows.

But insemination doesn't last forever.

Mom, I was always the forgotten child,

had no place in your thoughts.

I was so angry for so long, why?

Sometimes I still feel it,

but deep down I know you can't help it.

I wish your love were enough for me,

that your mind big enough

to remember my birthday,

how old I am,

but I know now that it will never be that way.

You can never be the mother

I longed for for so long.

Your mind is too sick,

your emotions too weak,

your thoughts too loud.

Well, I understand you and your absence,

that you only reach out in lucid moments,

as if it only occurs to you in the bright light

that you showed life.

And now life is slowly leaving your body,

destroyed by the many years in darkness,

and I constantly think about

how much you have missed and will miss.

You missed the most important moments:

my graduation, my pain, every birthday.

You don't know me anymore,

maybe you never have,

you don't know the abysses

I've had to walk through,

and believe me, you never will.

You couldn't bear any more shame,

even if it's not your fault.

Mom, your shame wears four names,

took on human form,

yet you cannot face it,

so you created an altar with our figures upon it.

I wish things weren't

as they have been for decades.

I wish you could live in the light, bathe in it,

but I know it's too late for that.

I forgive you,

and even though you never chose me,