I must obey and do, because someone else obeyed and did.

so are you really telling me
that because your cousin Barbara
(who is an abuser herself)
forgave her mother Doris
(who was an abuser herself)
that I, as your child,
now fully grown,
should forgive you,
the woman who birthed me into this cruel world
(who is an abuser herself)
for all of the cruelties you've inflicted on me
your child
because your cousin
(continuing the abusive cycle)
whom I've met a total of once
at a repass
"forgave" her mother
(an abuser herself)
in exchange for free childcare?
do you think forgiveness is something you can just
barter and exchange things for?
in exchange for forgiveness, undying fealty
in exchange for my dignity, verbal abuse
in exchange, a ruined marriage
in exchange
in exchange
a ruined life that lays in pieces all over the floor,
as you laugh at H for his attempts to circumvent
your control
as you strangle him with the strings you tied to my
hands and feet.

you just want to toy with me, don't you?
it's funny because
out of all of my abusers—
and there's been quite a few,
even though you do your damnest to impress upon my reality
that there was no such abuses at all—
you've been doing it the longest out of them all
all those years after Father died
from the house in Kearny where the walls could talk and
spill all of your dirty secrets about how much you hate your kids
to the apartment in Pompton Lakes where the walls stay silent
so they can avert any wrath from you that might come their way
to the final stop, end of the line, where I'll make sure the train derails
right here in Port Jervis
as it comes crashing through your house of horrors.
maybe you don't realise what you're saying or
maybe you do but you hope that I don't
because you think that I'm stupid, my head empty
but I know that you know that I've been
taking care of you and your every whim
ever since your husband died
and that's called "spousification"
and I was 10 years old.
now you accuse me of running away and leaving you to the wolves,
because you "don't know how to do anything" as if it's my job to teach you
how to live on your own—parentification
when it was your job to teach me
how to live out on my own
and you didn't and clipped my wings instead
you don't seem to give a fuck about a childhood stolen but that's what you did
the child snatched and locked away cries out into the night
surrounded by darkness and awful memories turned into nightmares
where she tries to run away but can't manage to outrun the evil right behind her
mother shaped
you tried to make a parent out of a child,
wanted to switch places so that you are now the little girl in need of affection
fingers stuck in your ears, you'll hear no other story of how
you're supposed to be a grown woman, a legal adult
when you've always been three toddlers in a trenchcoat playing pretend long into the night.
it's time to put away the dress up clothes and put the toys away
you're gonna have to grow up and be an adult
how will you ever cope indeed?
isn't it true, Egg, that we all have to grow up sometime?

"one last condition"
I'm not in the mood to listen
"I'll let you live here rent free if you continue to accept my abuse."
I'd rather light myself on fire
than click (x) I agree
to those terms and conditions;
I won't agree to read the End-User Licensing Agreement.
rest assured, I will continue to live here
rent free inside your head
long after I've left
I'd rather light myself on fire
than stay here anymore.