My Autobiography in Poetry — Part 10

Losing Tabitha

The worst day of my life was the day my mom left.

She was not taken away.

She left.

The day she went to jail,

The day I almost killed myself,

The day my heart was broken,

Was the day she made a choice.

She chose to break the law. Again.

She chose to risk leaving me and my sister.

Our stepdad was in jail. Where could we have gone?

She even had us sign a paper that said that

If anything happened to her

We were to stay with one of our stepdad’s relatives.

At the time it didn’t mean anything, staying with this woman I barely knew.

The day my life changed,

It meant everything.

She was trying to be better.

To make a little extra money.

But it didn’t work.

When we were told to go back to our trailer to retrieve our things,

That piece of paper was the first thing I grabbed.

I left behind my father’s birthday present to me,

The laptop I’d always wanted,

To make sure that my sister and I would have a place to stay.

But that paper was not notarized.

It was signed by a fourteen year old and a ten year old.

It meant nothing in the eyes of the law.

I should have grabbed the laptop. It was stolen that night.

My mother left us anyway.

I went to my dad’s. My sister bounced from family member to family member.

Our little family was broken that day.

But it was not good.

No. Not good.