What’s A Backbone?
You always told me you knew best,
But I’ve never really seen you at your best.
When I was young, sure, I thought you knew best,
But that’s because I didn’t know any better.
“He gets up and goes to work.”
“Do you ever go without the things you need?”
“He doesn’t have a problem.”
What’s your definition of a problem?
When the effects are evident?
Is it not a problem because you chose not to fight it?
Is it because you let him beat you, break all our furniture, and even threaten to burn our own house down (on multiple occasions)?
“He doesn’t have a problem.”
How normal is it to drink 3 bottles of beer when you wake up every morning?
How about 2 more on your lunch break?
Did the 12 after dinner count?
What about how I would go to school without money for lunch because it was more important for him to have money to buy beer at the end of the day?
“He doesn’t have a problem.”
Don’t make him angry.
You’d always say,
“When you get home from school don’t speak to him, unless he says something first.”
“Don’t argue with what he says, just agree.”
“When he’s yelling at the TV, belligerent, don’t get scared,
he’s just frustrated from his long day.”
“He doesn’t have a problem.”
I guess neither do you.
But I do.
I grew up in a household where excuses were made for an addict.
God forbid I even used the word addict.
“He likes to drink, so what?”
Drinking 20 bottles of beer A DAY, is a problem.
No matter which way you look at it.
My father, an alcoholic.
My mother, the enabler.
Don’t tell me you knew best when you couldn’t even stand for yourself.
I was a little girl who watched her mother be tormented by the same man she cowered into bed with each night.
You continue to cower into bed with him each night, apparently, he’s better.
He’s not as violent, he doesn’t drink 20 bottles a day, maybe 10 if he’s lucky.
He’s getting old and with that, so is his endurance.
He’s slowly losing to the battle himself.
“Functioning Alcoholic” isn’t a real term.
So next time, you want to say he “doesn’t have a problem,”
Remember I do, and probably always will.
Because
With each sip,
That bottle was able to tightly grasp,
Your voice, our family and my life right in the palm of my dad’s hand
an no one else seemed to see
how an inanimate thing was able to play
every single one of their strings.
See my problem?
Hello! My name is Faith Mazure, a junior at Bloomfield College, majoring in Broadcast Journalism.
Poetry has played a role in my life for as long as I can remember and has always been one of my favorite genres of literature to write. The creativity that can be put behind poetry has no limits and that's the beauty of it. My poetry is very raw and real similar to my personality and my outlook on the world around me. Poetry is an outlet---one I use quite often to channel myself and my feelings. I see it as a tool that helps me accept truths that can otherwise be difficult to comprehend or understand.
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