simone perry ; five cb

Some people are not supposed to have children, and my parents were two of those people. How they managed to stay together long enough to be married is beyond me, let alone staying together long enough to have four children. But they did. And then they left.

One step at a time.

I got my first job when I was fourteen. Mom had already been gone since I was eight, and it wasn't the first time Dad hadn't ever come back home. But he was gone long enough for us to run out of food, and I was the only one legally old enough to do something about it. After that, Ziggy, Esra, and Ace started to trust me more than anyone. Suddenly I was signing permission slips and making sure lunches were made. And don't get me wrong, I love my little siblings, but they are only a few years younger than me. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say when I find out that Ziggy is being paid to pretend to be other people so he can take their tests for them. I don't know how to handle Esra getting caught shoplifting lipstick. I don't know what to do when the school calls and says Ace has been in another fight. And I know that I am royally fucking them up, but the options are limited. In an ideal world, at least one of my parents would wake up some day soon and realize how shitty they are for heaping this responsibility on me. And maybe they'd be good parents if they tried.

Selfishly, I have to admit that I think about it a lot. Them returning, me leaving, and a number of other things I wouldn't ever admit out loud. Because I don't have a life. And I'm also not really one of those people who was ever supposed to have kids: that's the truth. I have an addictive personality, I have a bad temper, and I'm selfish. Yet, here I am. And it isn't simple, it's confusing. Because I love them and I am tethered to them and realistically I wouldn't ever allow myself to become yet another disappointment to them, but I don't want to be the reason they grow up to be like our parents and it's terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying.