We Wanted More

We wanted more. We sat at the table a broken family.

We stared at the empty chair that seemed so far away. We needed him. The missing piece, the backbone, the branch that had fallen from this family tree.

At night we layed in our bed, shivering under ripped blankets. For dinner we had Ramen, Ramen, or Ramen. We needed food, love, warmth. We were four strangers under one leaky roof.

At school, we hated the other kids. Their store bought backpacks and and clean clothes mocked our hand-me-downs. We wanted to rip the clothes off their bodies and steal their backpacks; we wanted to be the same.

We went home to screams and violence. Our butts never got used to the spankings. They turned a true red, and the tears came down.

We tried to be tough, we needed to be. We fought with words, fists, and emotions.

"Truce?" she said pulling my hair for the last time.

"Truce." I said, knowing it would start again the next day.

And when mom went to work, we were silent. We walked on eggshells, daring never to make a single sound.

One wrong move got us a beating. That familiar sting kept us quiet all night long.

On weekends, we would sit on the floor, cutting the hair off our dolls and ripping the heads off.

We wanted to destroy.

We were destroyed.

We needed to be saved.