Picture perfect House Suburban Middle class Picture perfect Picket fence Inside such stark Contrast Within these 4 walls All feelings Stay hidden To even mention the word Emotion Is forbidden Problems fixed with Voices shouting Fists flying Little ones all bruised And crying Marriage failing Children to blame Don’t try and argue You deserve This pain A father barely there A mother sick In her own mind Just searching For something to fill in The gaps that Leave her blind Cater to her every need Comfort her When she cries But when the shoes trade places She disappears There’s no goodbye So they raise themselves Form a pack with each other The eldest sister becomes alpha Takes on the role of Their own mother Trading childhood For survival And fun for Work and chores When adult hood Rolls around It’s no different Than before The fathers seen in glimpses Almost too quick to see With human eyes The only indication of his goings Is the destruction He leaves behind Broken toys and Broken hearts And ears that ring From all the shouting Soapy mouths Imprints of hangers Tell a story Different from his spouting But they never knew Right from wrong It’s all they’ve ever known It’s all they’ve ever been shown There was no fight or flight allowed Just submission and your word Conditioned to love Conditioned to forget Conditioned to trust But only live to regret Always pit against one another By their own mother Fighting everyday Over what they couldn’t say But the punishment was always the same There was no running and hiding You would always be found Only allowed to re enter If you submitted and bowed Never allowed to lick their wounds They don’t matter they always heal They always learnt their lesson It’s better not to feel And to this day they remember And they follow in her way Each with their own children They teach them that same way
