A BURDEN

They dont yell at me..but about me

they don’t yell at me 

they yell about me 

like I’m a math problem 

neither of them can solve.

---

my grades are collapsing 

like lungs 

in the last breath of a drowning 

i am sinking 

and the water is quiet 

---

my body 

a hollow house 

every room dark

but somehow still

too much to carry.

---

when I speak 

they flinch 

When I’m silent 

they forget I’m here.

---

I feel the weight of myself 

pressing into the earth 

it presses back 

like it wants me gone too

Author's Note

It happens to us a lot