I think my confidence got cracked
long before I even knew it had.
Trauma planted seeds in me
and they bloomed into doubt,
the kind that whispers
you can’t,
you won’t,
you never will.
So I started writing,
just to see if anything inside me was still alive.
Every sentence proved a little more
that I am not the child I was told I was anymore.
not sad, not angry, not unsure.
My mom said I wasn’t good enough.
My dad said I was crazy.
I think they were looking in mirrors
and didn’t know the reflection wasn’t me.
Sometimes I wonder
if my siblings carry the same ghosts.
7 of us,
born into the same storm,
raised under the same roof of projections.
Maybe we were given each other
so when our parents are gone,
we won’t be alone
in understanding
the pain we were handed.
But building connections with them feels hard.
cus now we all live so far apart.
Maybe it’s age,
maybe it’s distance,
maybe it’s all of us trying to heal
in different corners of the same house.
I hope one day we sit together and say
damn, we missed so much
because we were too busy surviving.
Being in my twenties is strange.
I anxiously crave love,
connection,
comfort,
yet the thought of being around my family
makes my chest tighten
my msucles are tense, stressed, depressed.
I know they are all kind,
sensitive,
soft in ways they hide.
We are a textbook case of something
that happened long before our lives.
I don’t miss being little,
but if I could go back for a day,
I’d grieve all the moments I rushed through,
all the times I wished i could just escape.
I hope someday
we become a family again,
wholesome,
healthy,
held together by something other than pain.
Maybe none of us know what real love looks like yet.
Maybe that’s why we haven’t found it.
Maybe we will.
I want to heal.
I want my siblings to heal.
I want to take my insecurities, and throw them high in the air
then watch them hit the ground and shatter like a vase of dirty water
I want my mom to heal too-
to see her own mother’s shadow
still clinging to her.
She is kind,
even in the ways I don’t fully understand.
I love her,
even when I don’t respect what she plans.
My parents are flawed,
but so am I.
I’m young,
they\'re older,
and all of us are human.
I hope one day we grow into people
who are loved
valued
seen
and whole.
Because I love my family.
I do.
I just don’t know why
I feel stuck in place,
standing still,
trying to chase
the moment
we all finally begin
to heal.