What is a Family?

I know that your family should be the most sacred bond in your life And yet all I want is to be alone. The doors slam and voices reverberate in the walls And yet all I do is plug my ears with loud music. The courtroom shakes with the ferocity of the divorce settlement And yet all I do is sit in school distracting myself with cellular respiration and trigonometric proofs. The angry emails fly and the screaming matches on the phone continue And yet all I do is delete the forwarded messages and close my door. "You are not to be in the middle of this," they tell me And yet all I do is defend each parent to the other after listening to a stream of insults. My older sister lives in Huntington, Pennsylvania, and my older brother lives in New York City And yet, underage, my younger sister and I are forced to shuttle back and forth between the two houses From 4:00-8:30 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other weekend. This is an extreme waste of time, money, gas, and effort And yet there is nothing I can do to change it: “It’s the court order!” My little sister developed extreme anxiety, starting with an airplane ride to San Francisco For a visit to see my mother’s family only. As for myself, I retreated inwards far from everyone. I surround myself with entertaining people and rarely discuss anything too personal. In fact, I seldom talk unless absolutely necessary around my family. But surely these are not normal family relationships. My family should be the people who know me inside and out The ones who would give their lives for me And yet rarely a day goes by without some sort of conflict A year and a half, and nothing settled at all And yet all I can do is hope that one day things will get better.