family and part-time adversary-
you’ve deciphered my source code,
pressing all the right buttons
at all the wrong times

do you know how conflicting it is
to hate aspects of who you love?
to despise what you grudgingly respect?

you are broken and in turn, you are breaking me

I am painfully aware of your
slow descent to insanity;
for a brief moment in time when
your hand connects with my right cheek,
I actually believe it is I who has lost her mind

thought we had a wonderful life.
on reflection, a desert storm couldn’t
wash the sins of that house

at your disposal,
I am your daughter
and you are not my friend

“what is this peer-enting?” you scorn

if it was clear from the beginning
that you were the adult
and I was the child,
why did I have to intervene?
why did I have to start stepping between
that violent hand and your frail body
since the age of eleven?

it has been years
and you’ve forgotten
you were not alone those nights

we have the same blood in our veins,
but better connections are formed
by (tainted) memories years have passed
longing for something
bigger than myself,
sitting behind locked doors
to eavesdrop on angry voices
while I covered his ears,
the little boy who looked up at me
believing I could stop this madness.