do you remember taking me to the wild thornberries right before you had to go to rehab?
remember we walked down colfax avenue to the megaplex and you walked next to me and i felt so important with you walking next to me and
do you remember when mom found my myspace and you picked me up from that bat mitzvah and you told me you once thought you were gay too and
daddy do you remember when i used to pour sprite on your head to wake you up on our every other weekends, when you would sleep in, so long i wondered if you had died yet,
and remember the time we thought we had lost the remote and i found it next to your bottle of vodka in the freezer and remember how i learned from you to put vodka in the freezer and
remember that time you told me to get out of the house and
remember that time when you told me it wasn’t rape cause he didn’t penetrate me and
remember that time when you told me you weren’t my mother anymore?
and remember that custody case?
that decade long custody case
that infinitely long custody case
that battle to prove to you i love you this much case
that blood shed and broken bodies cause
that’s how we do it in our family.
that’s how we love in our family.
cause it’s genetic, you see, this
masochism that is written on my dna,
this mantle i’m meant to uphold
on my shoulders like a heavy yoke,
pulling me to my fate, this
prove how much you love me by hurting me, this endless stress
this taut tension of a lifeline
this is this love a joke because
i don’t believe you love me when you hold me hostage.
i don’t believe family is forced obligation, but i cannot help but love these broken people around me no matter how many times they prove how stupid i am to me,
i am a sucker for an outstretched palm.
i have always been a sap for sentimentialism,
remember the blade or the noose or the pills or whatever it was,
remember the years of reminding me how little i fit anywhere,
remember the unanswered phone calls and the questions and the hospital and the urine testing rooms i’ve waited in for you and
remember when i had a chance to fly close to the sun
and you told me i wasn’t worth burning for?
