Knuckle Sandwiches and White Rice

[starlight]

Mom, why did dad have to leave?
I thought we'd always be a family. I agree with the posters above, this first line is child-like and seems a little unoriginal.

Now it's just me and you.
So what did I do, or what can I do?

To keep us together forever, the people I love and cherish.
Who should have thought more about their marriage, before they started pushing a carriage. The poem could start a lot stronger if you started with this line, and maybe a preface to it. I think everything before this can go without much loss (including "to keep us... cherish"

Why did my new dad beat me, or the two of you forget to feed me? Yeah, we were poor, and I know how hard it is to make a living when you're always bruised and broken from a deadbeat who has you convinced "You need me!"

Except ramen is only 29 cents. Were you scared to go to the store, walk through those doors, and have everybody stare at you with your two black eyes pointed at the floor. This line and the one before it were beautiful. I love the imagery and the rhyme works well

Were you ashamed that you couldn't get away and find something more? Were you keeping score? Counting all the times he turned off the lights and called you a whore?

Waiting, debating and hating until you took a machete to his skull?

In my mind I would bury him, stand in church as the lights dim.

Surrounded by family with bowed chins.

Looking at a dozen demons crawling away to escape the evil within that was him. The first part of this line is good but the 'evil within him' is a little unoriginal. This line doesn't add much to the poem anyways

Stop and breathe in. Wait, then sigh and let go of this burden, like a coat of his cold skin that I was carryin', and just ask myself why you ever married him. I like the comma after wait, it fits nicely with the wording.

I never asked to be born. Nobody did, but no matter how many times I hid, reality was always there to slap me upside the head. The rhyming here is a little distracting as it seems childlike and takes away from the mature ideas presented

Roll my ass out of bed, bright and early, for a new perilous journey. I don't think this line adds anything. You could easily get rid of this and "While" in the next line and go along just fine

While I throw the dice like dungeons and dragons. Gambling on a chance that I might get a new life, live twice.

Forget the past, restart, and survive off something other than knuckle sandwiches and white rice. I personally think the poem is a lot stronger if you end on this line and ditch the rest. It leaves a glimmer of hope without being glaringly obvious about it as you are in the following lines

The truth is, now that I'm older, I'm actually grateful.
Because the past is unchangable

And I found out what I didn't want to grow up to be

And how if you learn to love yourself, being hurt or hungry is a lot less painful.



~This is my first post, so hello everybody! Thank you for reading. I'm actually really excited to see what everybody has to say.

Overall I think this is a really great start. It has a lot of potential if you cut out the portions that don't add very much to the meaning. Thanks so much for sharing, this is a really lovely poem.