The chain must break

You can never teach your toxic parents 
they’ve lived too long defending their pain.
They call it love,
but it often feels like guilt wearing a disguise.

They say you’re a burden,
while carrying the weight of their own unspoken storms.
Their words cut,
but their silence cuts deeper.

They pass their traumas down like family recipes 
a pinch of anger,
a spoonful of control,
a lifetime of never being heard.

We didn’t start this fire,
but we were born inside its smoke.
We learned to breathe through ashes
and still call it air.

But we can choose 
to unlearn,
to heal,
to speak softly where they shouted.

Because someone has to stop this pain
from inheriting another name.
Someone has to stand up and say 
it ends here.

Before the wound becomes the world.
Before the blade grows sharper
than love itself.