Poetry Analysis

“What My Family Once Was”

When I think of what my family was once, I get this ache in the pit of my stomach and my chest tightens gradually. I don’t know whether it’s because my heart yearns for something that isn’t there or it’s the fear that it doesn’t remember what once was there, perhaps it’s both. My eyes begin to water and my throat begins to close up as I try to process this feeling that I’ve harbored over the past 3 years. It feels like I’ve been yelling for hours, but not a sound escapes my lips. I am still unsure of it all. These feelings that have manifested over these years change very frequently. It’s almost like I’m a chameleon, a confused and lost chameleon. So, I turn to everything I can make sense of to help me feel sane, because I can’t ever make sense of something I can’t control, my situation. I know, it’s selfish. It’s selfish to try and tell my mother not to leave despite all she’s gone through with my dad and I know it’s selfish to ask my dad to forgive her just so she can stay one more day, one more hour, one more minute. In my arms, in my sight, and most importantly in my heart. I know it’s selfish to ask this just so I don’t have to remember what my mother’s hair smells like when she holds me. Just so I can stop trying to keep myself from crying when she looks so happy to see me for the first time in months. Just so I can hear her voice for one last time before the sun goes down and the night strips the day of all its false promises that everything will be okay. I know. I am selfish beneath it all. Beneath the smiles I gave my mom when I told her I was happy that she was getting married. Beneath the comfort and relief I expressed when my dad told me that the divorce papers were finalized. Beneath the joy I show when I am at church when my soul and my heart feels like it’s on fire seeing all those families together. Beneath the feeling of trying to fit in with my cousin and their family when they take me on Sundays, and I act as if I’m not about to be torn apart by the seams because all I can feel is despair, and the grief of what my family once was.