So many poems, stories, articles, I have shared with you
None of which you ever read.
Encouraged you to challenge, think, surmise, emote
However, you choose remoteness and a critical soul to have beside you.
Your family is too loud, too happy
And you decide you need to be ashamed, of us.
The travel, history, art, politics, philosophy, sports, adventure and fun
We made a part of the everyday and our better selves.
How did I know that you would soak it up, only to hate that it was I who carried it from the Greatest Generation to us?
How can you not give the respect owed the one who drove to Vienna to usher you in
Especially, when she was the only one who never stopped showing up.
Are you so fickle as to only care about the newest shiny object
Whose luster will fade faster than his puffy-cheeked, gout-ridden greed?
I don’t want to see it
But you are there.
A million small slights and moments of careless forgetfulness
Compound to define a relationship without its familial soul.
Are you such an empty vessel
Whose void is filled by whatever is closest and most corrosive?
To grieve for the living could be a curse
But I will absorb it and sit with it, until the grief leaves me.
I love you, but can no longer be selfless to your selfishness
You take, but have no idea of what it truly means to sacrifice, or just let it be.
I will not teach you, nor model it for you
Any longer, because I have done my part, and done it very well.