Grow Up

You should be out of your parents house. 

When I move out what happens to me? 

What happens when I feel myself wanting to slip away and there’s not a knock of one of my brothers on my bedroom door asking me to play a game with them to snap me back, saving me from what they didn’t know I’m fighting?

What happens when there’s no one asking me what’s for dinner or to take them to the store?

What happens when I feel my stomach churning and my brain is on fire, my hands itching to reach for something, anything to take the pain away and there’s no one to tell me that they need help? 

She says it with such venom that the words leave a bitter taste on my tongue but my mother is right when she tells me “you couldn’t survive if you had to live on your own.” 

She’s not right for the reason she thinks she is, I can pay bills and cook and clean and face the real world. 

But I can’t survive without someone to pull me away from myself when I start sinking, even if they don’t know that they’re doing anything at all.