heirlooms - a poem about family ties
they smiled with teeth full of sermon and salt
while handing him bottles like burning olive branches,
as if peace could be brokered through poision.
shaking, slurring storms of fists and vodka, was their quiet shame wrapped in allowance.
they paid him to disappear,
then turned their backs as he burned down the house.
help, they called it.
said, "he's just lost."
but i was the one screaming behind closed doors,
patching holes in walls with trembling breath,
explaining fear with stories they never asked to hear.
where were you, grandmother of prayers and pearls,
when his hands were thunder and the night wouldn't end?
where were you, auntie of hollow hugs and half truths,
when my childhood cracked under his weight?
you gave him money,
gave him sanctuary,
gave him your blessing
to ruin what was left of us.
you let my home drown in silence,
as if it wasn't complicity wearing your scent.
you watched us children build our spines from splinters,
watched us cradle trauma like bedtime stories -
but never once did you ask
how it felt to be forgotten.
you call yourselves family,
but what bloodline breeds such cowardice?
you wore compassion like a borrowed dress
and sang songs of legacy with mouths full of rot.
you buried our pain beneath politeness,
taught us to smile with broken jaws.
you chose comfort over confrontation,
chose to protect the monster
because the monster was yours.
you passed him down like an heirloom curse
and we inherited the wreckage.
what love lets a child beg for safety
while her elders count coins in the kitchen?
what family turns its back on its own,
hoping time will mop up the mess?
you looked at him and saw a son.
i looked at him and saw the reason
i flinch at kindness,
sleep in shifts,
trust no one.
and still you look at me
like i'm the bitter one.
as if rage isn't earned,
as if grief isn't the only honest heirloom
you've ever given.
© anna marie atkinson, 2025
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