Not Our Own

How was I supposed to know?

How was I supposed to see?

With blinded eyes and foolish toes

I climbed up my family tree

An uncle here, a cousin there

a marriage in between

blooming children with great big hearts

all of the mess still unseen

A new arrival came one day  

Such a pretty little thing

We climbed and played on the family tree

Not knowing

All the chaos it would bring

A few years later

branches started to disappear

Was it just the season of life?

or the feeling in the air

Not until I was older, and I climbed up the tree

Could I see the hidden atrocity

An uncle here, a cousin there

But not from our economy

Flowers so pretty

But not from our own

From who’s tree were they coming from?

That’s when the truth was reveal

This tree was forged in misery

A family tree rooted together by an

unfortunate line of polygamy

A truth that was never really hidden

But a truth I could not see

For my blinded eyes and foolish toes

Took me to an alternate reality

Not so blinded anymore with the world not so big,

Unfortunate but true this life I will live