Poor Me

Dear mom I wish I could say these things with out breaking your heart.

I convinced myself young I would never be the daughter you wanted.

that stuck in my brain like honey.

I made myself into the trouble I was casted to be.

As if being the only girl of 4 wasn’t a challenge enough,

I was blessed with the constant comparison that comes with having a twin.

It hurts to know that I was the accidental part of the pair.

He was such a saint, such an angel.

I felt immediately seen as the devil.

And If that was how everyone already saw me,

why not just play under that villainized picture.

I acted in defiance,

but at the start I was desperately trying to fish for your attention,

little snags here and there,

but the wrong and punishing attention was always caught.

I never wanted to scream or slam the doors.

It was like an itch that needed scratching,

but like a bug bite the harder I itched and scratched the more I bled.

Never satisfying and always left with a stinging yet empty sensation.

I subconsciously kept defying you,

hoping that one day I would get the concern and loving attention

I had always seen you give to so many other people.

It always hurt to hear people talk so highly of you

A ray of sunshine they’d say

A smart and shining woman

I felt as if I was the one dimming your light

I got lost in the acts of defiance,

without realizing how far down this cruel path I was.

It was just what I was used to.

Letting everyone down,

especially you.

I wasn’t one of your sons,

I was just a doll you’d dress up like one.

I soon felt so comfortable in my brothers old handmedowns,

And I think that’s why my style is so important to me today.

It gives me an identity beyond my brothers’ shadow.

The constant thought when I was young,

was that,

maybe if i dressed like them and built forts like them,

then maybe you would love me like them.

And no doubt you love me,

but it’s a different kind of love,

a love you can’t relate to,

a love that doesn’t feel comfortable to you,

and you never discomforted yourself to try and love me in the way I needed.

Sometimes it hurts the most to look back and see how prioritized they were.

I loved dance.

I used to dance when I was 5.

I now dance around off rhythm all the time.

Because driving me to practice back then

was an unbearable pain,

and you said the dance teacher was too mean.

Then I joined hockey with the boys,

And you couldn’t care less how loud that coach would scream,

or that he made me skate till the taste of pennies filled my mouth.

The game, I couldn’t care less about.

I loved it because my brothers were around

and your eyes were glued to them.

I would glare at the stands, hoping your eyes would give me the smallest glimpse.

I tried to love anything they loved.

They loved running away from me,

it was such a game, hide and seek.

I’d be hiding for hours thinking I was winning

while they would be playing baseball in the yard.

It always hurt when I’d come out of hiding and see the joy in their eyes fade

seeing how they wish I would’ve stayed suffocating under blankets,

just to be the hardest find that they never sought out.

And yet, I followed them anywhere they went,

knowing they would try once again to shake me from their tail.

But I had nowhere else to go,

no friends I could invite over to YOUR home.

I would run around the yard doing whatever they asked,

at least it was some sort of inclusion,

but it was really just the birth of my chronic people pleasing, inability to say no, and all my delusions .

You’re probably chuckling away at that.

thinking “she is so selfish”,

and says “no” all the time,

but the real truth is

outside of the deceivingly enchanting house I’ve lived in my whole life,

surrounded by wardens waiting for my next step out of line,

I am described as selfless and kind, too forgiving and independent.

All things I was compelled to think I would never be.

No specific time can pin point the switch of attention you had on me,

to suddenly “caring”,

and the wanting of my “safety”.

But all I saw was something unrecognizable

it must have been a trick

Your form of control.

I couldn’t believe that you cared.

I didn’t want to believe you cared.

It felt too late.

Without even trying I defied even harder,

I drove myself to be more unsafe in spite.

somehow always ending up in last place.

The fail of the family.

Even though I am climbing my way to a safety I have never had the luxury of stepping foot in,

I anxiously am waiting for the rusty carabiner that you gave to me to finally give out and send me plummeting back down to a place i can only pray I don’t revisit