Seventeen Years

I've lived with you for seventeen years.

I was your second child,

and children don't ever know what to expect.

But is this what it's like to be your child?

Sometimes I can still feel the stinging pain

or the beautiful violet hues left behind.

But what hurts the most is what I never had.

One by one, I saw more cherubs facing the same fate as I.

Manipulation was your only talent.

I thought this is what it's like to be your child.

I feared the most when the clock struck eight o'clock.

That's when my world came to a sudden stop,

and all I'd hear was the disharmony of a family too large for their own good.

Some nights I was cast out into the unknown,

walking and searching for the next lampost

to cast away anything residing in the dark.

My only source of warmth was my tears

and the small sparks that began to chirp inside my chest.

People tell me that I'm too young to understand you.

I grew to be sick,

I grew to be weak,

I grew to be unusual,

or so what you've told me.

You despise every part of me,

but why do you want me to love every part of you?

The chirping sparks inside me have caused a wildfire

and burned down weeds of manipulation you planted in me as a boy.

I am not too young to understand. 

I know who I am.

But I know what you are.

And I will fight. 

I've lived with you for seventeen years,

But this will be my last.