They ask me...

Estrangement isn’t something people talk about easily. There’s an expectation—an unspoken rule—that family should always find a way to stay together, no matter what.

I get asked the same question over and over by people who come into my life—“Why don’t you have a relationship with your mother?” It’s always asked with curiosity, like it's some simple thing to explain, but the answer isn’t simple.

How do you explain something that’s buried so deep in your bones?

There’s judgment too—the kind that comes from not understanding, the kind that leaves me feeling like I’m the one with the problem. The kind that makes me feel isolated.

That’s why I write under a pen name—to protect the parts of me that I can’t share with certain people without feeling exposed. The things I carry aren’t always things I can say out loud, so, this poem is for the moments when I’m expected to answer a question I can’t. It’s for the silence that has been my response.

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The Poem Itself

they ask me why i don’t have
a relationship with my mother,
and i want to answer,
but i know the words would burn
before they ever leave my mouth.

i’ve spent years folding my heart
into a quiet i could wear like armor,
keeping the venom of my truth
hidden in the cracks between my broken bones.

it’s not that i haven’t tried to speak
it’s that every time i do
i hear her voice in the back of my throat—
and it’s always a little too late,
always a little too sharp,
always a little too much.

so instead, i stand in silence
holding the wreckage of our past,
of everything we could never be
and they will never know
how loud it screams
inside of me.

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Reflection/Analysis

I wrote this poem after reflecting on an encounter I had with someone in the past who just kept pressing me, asking why I don’t have a relationship with my mother. It was like a broken record, the same question in different forms: “But she’s your mother. How can you just walk away?”

And in those moments, I’m flooded with everything I’ve carried for years—the trauma, the fear, the grief of never having known the love of a mother. Sometimes, I leave the conversation feeling upset or angry, but mostly I feel this deep exhaustion. I don’t want to explain myself over and over again. I shouldn’t have to justify why I’ve chosen my peace over an abusive relationship.

That’s where this poem comes from—trying to express something that can’t be easily understood, and the silence that often comes with it.

This poem is from my upcoming book, Sea Salt and Silence. If it spoke to you, I can't wait to share more pieces like this with you soon.

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A Thought to Carry with You

People ask, but they don’t always want the real answer. They don’t want to hear about a childhood spent walking on eggshells, about the nights spent replaying words that cut too deep to forget, or how terrifying it was to grow up in a place where love was conditional and fear was constant.

So sometimes we stay silent. We hold onto our pain, carry it like an inheritance we never asked for. But sometimes, we need that silence to reflect, to heal, to grow, and to understand ourselves more deeply than spoken words could ever express.

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Write It Out

Write about the first time you realized you needed to let go of something or someone to protect your peace. What did it take to take that first step?

Thank you for reading,

Debra 💛

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