By Ashwathi Mohan
(This poem is dedicated to all the children who were born into broken families)
My eyes didn’t open to the world of benevolence
They opened to two people looking at me in a hospital ward with high hopes
Because they were already born, and they couldn’t undo it
So here I was, their sweet redemption as they themselves couldn’t do it.
I was the consequence of endless liquor bottles after their fights,
And a possible remedy for the love that had left their lonely nights
So, that is how it all began
I’ll save them from their misery, yes that was their plan!
I was a beautiful 7 pound baby
Can I rescue them? Maybe!
Learning how to walk, I held my mother’s hands
Smooth and supple skin, perfect moisturized
But eyes were dewy, something kept her terrorized
I would endlessly cry for her and not go to school
But I also always longed for my father, but without his rules.
So who is the victim and who is the villain?
Well, they perfectly swapped these roles.
Sometimes it was the sharp reminders of who has the higher payroll
And sometimes it was the needling noise of who gets to take the remote control.
Ironically, to watch a film filled with romance
While one got the remote, the other prepared for the next fight-in advance
4 years later, I was 40 pounds– 33 of flesh and bones and remaining was the weight of my 9 lumps of anxiety.
You know why broken families don’t have neat rooms?
Because the babies who were supposed to keep it clean
Are already messed up inside their mothers’ wombs
They now only attempt to clean other people’s emotional mess
Because for them it was always a yes for no and no for a yes
Their wide chests could never feel the gentle breeze of a tender caress
If you undress them and remove their sheath of skin
I promise you, you will see a bundle of nerves
Filled with impulses, that they impulsively didn’t press.
They are kids who have known funeral blues before someone's death
Behind closed doors, ask them how many times have they rehearsed their last breath?
Believe you me, not once, not twice
All these kids ever wanted was –their nurturers to be nice
Or else why would the beautiful 7-pound baby turn into 56killos of hopelessness
When my story could have changed with just one ounce of kindness
Confusing water for an ocean, sand for a dessert
I prayed silently for a blank canvas at the palm of my hand
To paint something, something- that my heart can understand
They gave me paint brushes, but forgot to hand me a bunch of colours
Now I only use the blues in my life, to paint things black and white
I care to ask, where were all those blessings that kids are promised at birth?
Where was the care and conviction that forms a child’s self-worth?
Ask the nights-lonely and dark, the ones that consumed me
Ask them, how it is to eat your silent sufferings to sleep
To shoo away the pain that has drilled itself skin-deep
Ask them how I now have an eating disorder,
When all I ever tried was to try to put our lives in order.
I was too young to try too hard to mend things
When they had forgotten the grammar of staying together
And the taste of everything that respect brings
Instead of putting dinner on dinner tables
They always had a buffet of labels
Where they called each other names
Some so mean, it was insane
And sometimes it was the thundering noise of pushing and pulling
Leaving them with scars
I wondered they are the ones with the scars
Then why am I bleeding?
Kids with broken families have seen too much destruction
Right under the photo frame hung on the wall
that has smiling faces of all
and a cute sticker that reads ‘happy family’
Guess what, by now I had stopped weighing myself-the beautiful 7-pound baby
Because now I knew that from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes
I am nothing but the weight of this poem
Did I rescue them? Oh, hello no!
But I will rescue the children that will come out of me
I will serve dinners on dinner tables
I will put all the love that is humanly possible in their meals
Because you know what-how else am I supposed to heal?
Only love, is the answer–only love - can set us free
And the years of generational trauma they induced
I promise you-it ends with me!