I love my parents when they’re sober.
When mom drinks,
she slowly slips away:
stumbling,
spilling,
slurring,
spinning the same stories
again and again
until she nods off
into the night.
Her eyes grow heavy,
her presence thin,
and I can feel the distance
setting in.
Mom, are you there?
Mom, can you hear me?
Close enough to touch,
but too far to reach.
When dad drinks,
I see the shift in his eyes
as the liquor takes hold,
begins its battle for his soul.
Bones of iron, spirit of steel,
a man who never bends or yields,
is cut off at the knees
by a weakness he can't conceal.
Devil in the drink
lets him think he’s in control
as he keeps
pouring,
downing,
sinking deeper.
His words turn sharp,
his temper short,
and something darker
takes possession.
And this man,
this ox of a man,
who could make me feel safe
from anything in the world
becomes the very thing
I fear.
I could reprimand them,
but I know what they’d say:
You quit drinking,
and now you’re on your high horse.
But that simply isn’t true;
this sadness that I carry
isn’t new.
It's lived inside my chest
since I was just a girl,
watching my security
erode into their glass.
By the time I was grown,
I could hardly stand to be around it.
But what choice did I have?
To be around them
was to be around it.
What was I supposed to do?
Miss the traditions,
the holidays,
the Sunday afternoons?
I couldn’t.
I can’t.
I love my parents when they’re sober.
So I found a way
to quiet the noise.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Years of drunken fun:
cards on the table,
music in the kitchen,
dancing,
laughing,
singing.
And honestly,
those are the best memories.
But at what cost?
Somewhere between
the laughter and the liquor,
I got lost
in wanting to belong
and needing to forget.
I couldn’t see the price
of the choices I’d regret.
What a fool to believe
I could stay in control,
that knowing what it looked like
meant I’d never lose my own.
I thought I’d learned their lesson,
that I’d know just when to leave,
never seeing all the while
their demons rooting in me.
I promised myself
my children would never know
what it felt like
to watch their parents let go,
to see them transform
into something unstable,
something uncertain,
someone they couldn’t quite trust.
But I can’t tell my parents that.
It would hurt them too much.
And I can’t bear to hurt them.
I love my parents when they’re sober.
Night after night,
I’d lie awake in shame,
afraid of what I was becoming,
swearing I’d never do it again.
But with the morning sun,
I’d find a way
to excuse myself
without making a change.
I wanted to change.
I tried to change.
I couldn’t change.
I was in too deep.
There was no such thing
as drinking responsibly,
no healthy relationship
with alcohol for me,
only a hundred ways
to justify
the drink
that kept me pacified.
They’re still young.
I still have time.
I can stay numb
for a little longer
and still be
a good mother.
And in a season
when drinking felt like living,
we moved right next door
to the laughter,
the gatherings,
the clinking glasses,
the life I’d always known.
Next door to the parents
that I love so much
when they’re sober.
I thought it would be wonderful.
I thought we’d have fun forever.
And then my children started to notice.
Sometimes, when you don’t tuck us in,
I come into your room
and kiss you both on the forehead.
Oof, how something so tender
could make me feel so small.
Why do you always have to have alcohol
at everything we do?
Suddenly, I wasn’t standing
in front of my children.
I was standing in front of myself:
the little girl
who watched her mother’s words unravel,
who saw the change in her father’s eyes,
who learned to love the beginning of an evening
while fearing how it might end.
My children never said the words,
but I heard them just the same:
I love my parents when they’re sober.
And God, how that broke me.
It split me in two.
Cut open my gut
and forced me to choose.
I’d spent my whole life
trying to escape a feeling
that I’d inadvertently
taught my children to carry.
I promised them,
I promised myself,
that I’d be better.
Now I’m fighting for my life,
while fighting for theirs,
on a battlefield I built
with my own two hands.
And the hardest part?
I’m fighting it right next door
to the ones who taught me
to surrender to that war.
I still love the laughter,
the music,
the memories,
I still long for belonging.
And I still love my parents when they’re sober.
I don’t know how to tell them
that what I’m trying to save my children from
is everything I learned while trying
to stay close to them.
So I carry it quietly:
the love,
the guilt,
the grief,
the wanting.
Somewhere inside me,
beneath the woman,
the wife,
the mother
who is trying to
break the cycle,
there’s still a little girl
who is lonely and frightened.
Though the years have come and gone,
she’s still waiting in that place,
searching for comfort
in her mother’s presence, safety
in her father’s embrace.
And she cries out into the nothingness,
I love my parents when they’re sober.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/RVqPpcoFSL
https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/lkdFNnGyl6