Child of a Hoarded Home

It's similar.

We're similar.

So the empathy is wrapped in fear.

In knowing... it could be me.

In knowing that you don't have parents to step in and guard you as theirs.

Guilt.

Cosigning the weirdness of his behavior, to assert that I am different.

I am not him.

I couldn't be.

When we all know I could.

As she said, it wasn't out of malice but stupidity.

A hard lesson to learn.

To embrace.

When she stopped speaking to me

I couldn't understand

What did I do?

What was so bad that you could excommunicate me so easily?

Why did I forgive you?

Because I'd never known a friendship like this. A love. A friendship that claimed family. That came with a family with open arms.

That said come and visit. come and stay. come back and spend the holidays.

A friend that listened to my past and said, well you can come here from now on.

A family that provides comfort.

To us.

The unloved.

The lonely.

The hurt.

The abandoned.

A family that says no - you can not come.

A family that says we will not disrespect our family's wishes.

A family that says you are not ours.

A family that says you will never be.

That there are limits.

Lines crossed and so, we stand on the other side of you.

I can feel it.

I feel it deeply.

What holiday cheer was conjured, has been lost.

The knowing that this is all temporary.

Because this is not ours.

You can not get too comfortable.

You can not believe it all with everything you have.

Because you are not family.

You were chosen.

Selected. And then disregarded.

Told to move on.

To make a different life.

That the comforts you held are no longer for you.

The family is no longer

The friends

The relationships

The foundation you relied on during one of your hardest years

is rejecting you

To teach you a lesson

A lesson of respect, friendship, love

A belief that in the permanent separation - your suffering will push you to never act as such again

As I write this

I cry

I want to go home

I want to feel comfort elsewhere

I want to open a door and hug a sibling that loves and sees me

I want to cry and have my parents reassure me

I want home.

And I am thankful that my lesson of the past year, is the confident acceptance that putting home in a person is not safe.

Home in anything outside of self is not safe.

It is not secure forevermore.

Gut wrenching.

Acheing in pain.

Tears stream with the current rain.

A prayer held - that one day Xav, you too will be able to find a slice of beauty in the possibility of never experiencing this again.

And for you Ravey Baby - A prayer held that fear won't shudder through me as it did when looking for her golden cross. or speaking of the red lipstick. fear that there'd be a thought that I was in the wrong. fear that my emotions too dramatic, drastic, large and heavy for her.

A prayer that I'll continue to be able to write my way to clarity

Write my way to understanding .. to breathing normally again

A prayer that in the next two years I'll have my home.

Merry Christmas.

• 10PM | December 24, 2022 | Barbados •