I Never Wanted to Be Here: A Poem
At the beginning of the summer
you are supposed to spend with me,
with your things spread out in my basement
so there’s only a small path to walk through
to get to my laundry room,
you sit me down and say
you want to go back to your college town instead.
I don’t hear that you’re missing your friends,
that this mountain of belongings to sort and organize
is overwhelming you,
that getting a summer job is something
that causes you anxiety,
I hear
I never wanted to be here.
*
When you call your college town your home,
not this house with me in it
taking care of your cat
and holding all you own taking up one of my floors,
I hear that this is just a storage locker and a kennel
in your mind,
I hear
I never wanted to be here.
*
When you sleep all day
and I have to ask several times for you to help me
and you don’t volunteer to do anything around the house
and don’t try to help care for your cats or plants
but let me do it all
I hear
I never wanted to be here.
*
When you mention the high school
you would have graduated from
if you would have lived with me
with disdain
and say thank god I got out of there
and I remember
you and your brother went willingly
when your father left me and took you too
and you’ve never said
you wanted to stay with me
I hear
I never wanted to be here.
*
When you talk about being suicidal
I think of the sacrifices I made
to be a parent and raise you
and I wonder what I did wrong
and if it wasn’t enough,
I hear
I never wanted to be here.
*
When your brother doesn’t come to visit
on weekends he’s supposed to be here
for visitation
I hear
I never wanted to be here.
*
When I think of your father leaving me
because of my mental illness
and I wish I wasn’t sick
and I wonder
how I could have made things different
I hear him saying
I never wanted to be here.
*
When I think of your brother going off to college
and the visitation ending
and nothing forcing him to come back
I imagine him never coming
to visit me,
saying
I never wanted to be here.
*
When I think of the close friends I don’t have,
how alone I am,
how no one is truly in my life,
only at the surface of it,
I wonder why I am even here,
I imagine them all saying,
I never wanted you to be here.
*
When I get more rejections than acceptances
for my writing
I wonder why I keep doing it
I hear them saying
I never wanted you to be here.
*
When the only reason I keep going
is a cat that wants me here
and a desire to not disappoint my parents
I wonder
Why am I here at all?
*
5–20–22
TJSEP
