I am a product of a broken home

A summation of lost love 

intertwined with lost trust

 

My parents broke my trust

 

My family tells me I am a perfect mix of 

My mother and my father

So I guess to them I am broken

 

My mother taught me strength

Taught me that the world waits for no one

that it will bend and break me

Push me past limits I didn’t even know I had

but there’s no such thing as giving in

I have to stay strong

Bottle up my emotions 

and put it on the top shelf

 

But I can’t 

I wear my heart on my sleeve and my mother calls me too emotional

Like it’s a bad thing

 

Then my brain starts tricking me into believing that it is 

Because yes I know mother knows best 

But I also know its okay to feel

And that my emotions are valid

They don’t make me weak

 

My father taught me how to leave

How to swallow my pride and walk away

When I know that I am wrong

Know that I’m causing more harm than good

Even if it means walking away from love

My father walked away from love

From my mother 

From me and my 2 sisters

but not from my life

He just went to start a new one

With someone I guess he loved 

more than us 

Which explains why my mother keeps 

Her emotions on an unreachable shelf

She’s been hurt too badly in the past

And just wants us to protect our hearts

 

My father broke my heart

 

But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him

 

It just means that cold hands 

do more harm than good

Just because I am hurt 

does not mean I asked for an ice-pack my wounds healed 

in the lack of his presence

 

My parents taught me 

What love is not

and I don’t hate them for it

They did not make me fear love

I’m thankful that I can learn from 

their mistakes

I will show them 

What love could be

How love should be

 

I wish my mother

could’ve gotten the love 

she deserved

That everyone deserves 

 

I am a product of a broken home

 

A summation of strength

intertwined with swallowed pride 

I begin to wonder if love 

was ever factored into this equation

 

I am a product of a broken home

and that may make me a statistic 

But it does not make me broken