Home, that unsettling stages of smiles turned sinister,
Where laughter twisted into a haunting refrain,
Mom painted as a puppet, strings drawn taut by chaos
If the screams that shattered the air weren’t aimed at one another,
There existed a brutal war between your dad and sister.
Two hearts battling in a storm, far too similar in fire.
She gravitated like a moth drawn to a flame,
Always stepping on landmines planted in their shared history,
A relentless prisoner in his battlefield of expectations.
Your sister, blindly unaware, thought her battles were the only storm,
But beneath the surface, you fought your own silent wars—
The kind that gnaw and tear at the spirit, leaving wounds unseen,
Punishments stretching far beyond her thunderous cries.
They stripped you of your online world,
Your lifeline and connection severed,
A cruel tether binding you in isolation for a couple months.
When dad cracked your wrist, the pain wasn’t just physical;
It was a reminder of the weight you bore,
Forced into the role of the golden child,
A mask you wore until it felt like a second skin
Carrying that burden was a heavy toll,
Each day a balancing act on the tightrope of expectations,
While you tiptoed through this circus, breathless,
Caught between the roles you were forced to play.
Your sister’s gazes sharp as a dagger,
Each glance carrying the weight of jealousy and frustation,
Your sister carried a chip on her shoulder,
Resentment brewing like a storm cloud overhead.
In hushed conversations with both your grandma and mom,
You guys’ reached out across the battlefield, asking the questions that haunted you:
“Does she still love me?”
“Will we ever find our way back to being friends?”
As the years stretched on,
You hoped one day you could unravel the knots of your shared history,
And find your way back to those bonding moments.
When you were inseparable, two halves of a whole,
In the very spaces in the home once filled with love and safety.
Before the silent battles turned you both into combats of war against each other
You and your sister’s dad came with whispered apologies,
Wrapped in the scent of guilt—he’d shower her and you with things
As if that could mend the fractured love.
Trinkets and toys piled high like a mountain of unspoken words.
But what her and you craved, beneath the surface of shiny distractions, was a simple truth: love.
Something you both could hold close, not just for show.
Something that would rise above the chaos,
Burning brighter than any gift could ever hope to outshine.
