The Lucky Child

If I asked you who I am,
I so desperately wonder what you would say.
For after all, you are the reason why I am this way All of your oh, so careful words from your oh, so harsh tongues,
All of our 5 A.M. arguments turned to five hours, five days, five weeks of not seeing each other
Even though we lived in the same house.

Why do you think I was oh, so desperate to leave? Oh, so desperate to be free?
And yet I'm left to wonder
Would you take one look at me
And be disappointed in all that you see?
Of how different I am from the person in your hopes and your dreams?
Never mind that that was never me.

I never could be the child you wanted
For really, I was never a child at all,
Just the firsthand product of secondhand dreams. My playing pretend was calling an Uber from a different street
And looking okay whilst I fell apart at the seams. Oh, how “lucky” I must’ve been to live a life so grand
Doors slammed, pills spilled and bottles sent flying by your hand
All in place of the gentle touches, correcting our mistakes, learning how to just be, all that a childhood should’ve been
All that I would never be.

No six-year-old should have to be strong
No seven-year-old should have to carry Atlas’s pain
No eight-year-old should be learning about suicide and thinking oh, but what if I gave this a try?
What a neat little thing it must be to die.