I’m tired of parenting my parents
how did I become the adult in the room
when I was still a kid needing answers
Grief doesnt come and go
it just sits with me
shows up every time they show me
who they still choose to be
Grown, but emotionally stuck
like accountability something they duck
still deflecting, still protecting
their ego like giving that up is bad luck
And I’m just trying to feel
what freedom is supposed to be
but you can’t heal in a space
where nobody takes responsibility
They're both only children
but somehow still full of self
self-first, self-focused
never reaching for nobody else
Too comfortable with distance
like silence don’t cost a thing
like not knowing your own child
ain’t something that should sting
They don’t know me
not really, not deep
so why would I expect them
to show up for my seeds
Holidays don’t hit
birthdays don’t feel the same
just reminders every year
who didn’t come, who didn’t claim
My mother did the basics
kept us fed, kept us seen
doctor visits, school clothes
everything surface level clean
But love with depth?
connection?
we didn’t get that part
left my older siblings
to help raise us from the start
Children raising children
while she did what she could
but “could” don’t always mean
what a child knows as good
And my father. . .
he ain’t even know I was here
Imagine living your whole life
and your truth just disappear
wrapped up in family secrets
passed down like fear
Had me calling another man “dad”
like that was supposed to stick
building who I was
on something that wasn’t even it
Didn’t find out till eighteen
almost grown, almost gone
truth hit different
when it take that long
So I go to him
heart open, no disguise
and the first thing he give me is
“What do you want?” in his eyes
What I want?
I don’t know, maybe effort
maybe time
maybe a father who understands
this role ain’t got a deadline
But in his mind
I was grown, I was straight
like turning eighteen means
you don’t need nothing else from fate
So he checked out
said his job was done
same story, different parent
same outcome
I been on my own since sixteen
trying to figure life out quick
running from a home
that felt heavy, felt thick
So yeah I ran to the military
needed space, needed breath
needed something that felt like
it wasn’t slowly choking me to death
Because sometimes family
ain’t a safe place to be
sometimes the thing that’s supposed to hold you
is the thing you gotta leave
The Daughter They Didn’t Know
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Response to “The Daughter They Didn’t Know”
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This doesn’t read like anger. Anger moves quickly, outward, looking for somewhere to land. This feels quieter and heavier. It reads as grief. Not the kind that arrives and then passes, but the kind that settles in and stays because there was never enough there to lose cleanly in the first place. There’s a difference between fighting your parents and mourning the absence of what they were supposed to be. This is that absence given language.
The voice holds without slipping into performance. It never reaches for effect or exaggeration. It sounds lived-in, and because of that, the weight stays intact. The structure follows the same emotional logic. It fragments, circles, and resists resolution because there is no resolution to offer. The form mirrors the experience.
The line that settles deepest is the one about children raising children while she did what she could, but “could” not meaning what a child understands as good. That moment carries both grace and pain at once. It refuses to turn her into a villain, but it also refuses to excuse what was missing. That balance feels earned rather than imposed.
By the time the ending arrives, everything before it shifts. What could have been read as running reveals itself as survival. It becomes about finding space, finding air, choosing something that does not close in. The final idea, that sometimes the thing that is supposed to hold you is the thing you have to leave, doesn’t announce itself as a thesis, but it functions as one. It gathers everything that came before it and lets it settle there.
What gives the piece its power is its specificity. It never reaches outward or tries to generalize its experience. It stays rooted in its own truth, and because of that, it becomes something others can recognize in themselves without being told to.LikeLike
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