You loved your booze more than us

You said you’d rather go to jail than give mom money for us

You passed out when you were supposed to be ‘visiting’ us

You drove off the road and could have killed us

You tried to earn our love by bribing us

With extra cheesy tuna melts

And the toys that already belonged to us

Left at your house when we had to run

You hurt mom a lot but never us

(Except that one time)

I thought I remembered all of it

But there was more, grandma told us

How you called her one day and said

She’d better come get us

Or you might kill us

She found us

Hiding behind the washing machine

I forgot that part

I thought that to forget was to forgive

And I thought I would never forget

But then you died and truly abandoned us