long ago but still fresh, like a wound that won’t scab.
You started with a full bottle—
but colder in your chest,
where the heart should be.
You drank till the bottle was three-quarters empty.
"I didn’t drink that much,"
Dripping poison, slurring sin
Your nonconsensual caregiver--
demanded to play nurse, play maid, play saint.
"Help me with the boiling tub," you say,
as you wiggle through slurred syllables,
as you wobble where you stand.
Instead, she asks—"How much did you drink?"
You rehearse this fib every time.
"Of course, I haven’t had too much to drink!"
Because the truth is a stranger you refuse to meet
The insults fly like they’ve got wings,
sharp and fast, no warning shots.
the expected caregiver, the default nurse, the punching bag—
I take it, like I always have,
since I was six years old.
Six years old, in a broken home,
watching life-teachers barely teaching,
but doing their best—so they say.
So why is my responsibility so big?
Why do I carry the weight they never could?
A childhood stolen, a role not chosen.
oh, then, you call me names.
The child you love, right?
The daughter you raised, right?
like you, in front of that tub—
bare, but not vulnerable,
exposed, but never apologetic.
The fireball throws you off balance,
half-amused, half-disgusted,
full of something I can’t name.
Not because it’s funny,
But because broken things make strange sounds
Because my own pain turned bitter, sharp,
You might have been angrier,
I didn’t stay to find out.
