I sat in the car seat when I was five.

I watched, but didn’t listen, as they squabbled. Little hand pressed to tiny ears, I blocked it out.

And that’s when they asked me.

“Mommy or Daddy?”

They bounced their opinions back and forth, like a painful tennis match.

The waters know what it means to be battered to and fro.

They asked relentlessly, but I never answered.

And so they split me in half.

“You got what you wanted,” they said.

But I didn’t.

I wanted to be whole again.

Who wants to hobble on one leg?

It still resonates in my peripheral vision.

My parents and me didn’t understand.

We didn’t understand each other, or why it was this way.

So I came of age.

And my parents and me split.

Like I did when I was five.