When I stop and try to understand who I am or how this version came to be, I find myself going back and it hits me. I’ve only ever known who I was because of things I was taught and names I picked up. I never thought to second guess the life my parents said they blessed me with. The characteristic traits they gave to me as their individual gifts. I didn’t think it all that bad when dad threw mom around like he had, just before our breakfast, then class. It was branded into me that was some kind of normalcy, in other families. It wasn’t, and I was too young to do anything. I was told what to do, how to act and inevitably, who to be. I was never given any other choice. I was told to lower my standards, before I even knew they were set for me. I didn’t learn until now that I have a voice which can actually project from me. Yet, still sometimes I revert back to her and forget these things. Now I can give that little girl some space because as it happens to be, she grew up and never grew out of feeling alone, out of control, small and weak. She didn’t believe someone from where she came from was worthy of any good or positive opportunities, until she woke up, in her early 30s. That’s when she started listening to the parts of her that never stopped hurting. She gave them a chance to finally be tended to and seen. No longer stuffed away in a box labeled: DO NOT OPEN ME. These days she’s working on a new blueprint for her own identity. Without infecting it with the old and outdated programming. So who was I and who was this me but a version of an ego forced upon me. Now, that box is almost empty , it has been a long time coming. I took the parts out that I was told were rotten and I’d be better without. But my heart was never a piece of produce, or trash to toss aside, and count out. My presence wasn’t a burden, and my life with me is not better without. Mom didn’t deserve the pain she unknowingly kept, and gave out. She was never told that she could be someone more than the old records message in her head, which constantly played aloud. Eventually forcing any part of an identity to retreat, causing her to be defined by the man who kept her voiceless and lonely. Dad also knew no better as he was brought up the same way. He was showed the role of who he was to play, and so the generational identity crisis game was put on replay. Egos were made identities removed, which were all based off of someone else’s lack of ability to choose what will separate him/her from the rest of the fools.
By Sierra Mazzucca
Los Angeles Poet
#healing #breakingchains #poetry
Sierra Mazzucca's Poetry site 
Care to share ?