I see it now, what I couldn’t see then,

I should have held you, should have been your refuge.

I’m sorry. I didn’t see it.

The weight you carried, the silent screams.

The scars you hid.

Sorry for not being enough.

Sorry for being too much.

Sorry for not being anything at all.

Sorry for being so obtuse.

Your (our) parents’…

I see them in the backdrop of your sorrow,

their quiet sacrifices, struggles,

the way their eyes always seemed to carry a weight I didn’t understand.

The way they worked through storms, inside and out.

I see it now.

Their struggle, your responsibilities.

And here I stand, a part of that burden,

carving cracks into your already fragile heart.

I’m sorry I couldn’t see it before.

Sorry.

My words, my actions, my inactions.

They were sharp knives, piercing your soul.

I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to, never

But I did. I hurt you, deeply.

How foolish I’ve been,

thinking the world revolved in ways that made sense to me,

when in reality, it spun on the axis of your unspoken fears,

the hidden battles you fought alone.

Sorry,

I didn’t ask.

I didn’t listen.

I didn’t understand.

You deserved more. More of me.

More patience, more grace, more hugs,

more of the kind of love that reaches deep,

that sees beyond the surface of your struggle.

But I stayed on the outside,

unaware of the war you were waging,

as if it were your battle to fight alone.

I see now that we’re bound by something,

neither of us can fully untangle,

some twisted thread of fate that knots

and frays at all the wrong moments.

I never wanted this mess,

this dent, this fracture in any of us.

But here we are,

pieces scattered across a floor

we don’t know how to pick / sweep / clean.

And I don’t know if it’s fate, or just some cruel coincidence,

but life has a way of making us collide,

again and again,

and the wreckage gets harder to ignore.

I’m sorry for the the things I said,

and the things I left unsaid,

the moments I should’ve been there but wasn’t.

Sorry,

For the times I hurt you,

not out of malice but out of hostility.

I’m sorry for every misstep, every careless word,

every wound I didn’t know I was inflicting.

Yes, there is weight society has passed down to us,

unasked for, unearned, but still and forever ours.

How cruel, to be the vessel of their / man-made norms.

They wanted so much from us,

but all it has done has left scars

on the children (us) who never asked for any of it.

Sorry,

For the times I left you bleeding,

being there but looking the other way

I didn’t intend it.

I swear I never wanted to build this desolation,

this hollow, suffocating place

where happiness feels like a distant dream.

But here we are.

And I am sorry,

I cannot unmake it.

Sorry,

You were the little happy flame,

and I, I was the breath that extinguished it.

I could’ve been the wind beneath your wings —

instead, I became the weight on your chest,

a stone sinking deeper into the water

as you tried to stay afloat.

Sorry,

For the times I fed you hope

when all you needed was honesty.

I gave you empty promises,

like paper boats in a river,

expecting them to hold your heart.

I didn’t know how fragile your soul had become,

how the waters had risen,

how the currents were pulling you under.

I never saw the storm coming,

until it was too late,

until it had swallowed us both whole.

Sorry,

For being the storm,

when all you needed was peace.

Sorry for the chaos

when you longed for support and care.

Sorry for the times I asked for more

when I should’ve just let you be.

Sorry.

For the way, I failed to be the one you could lean on,

when you’ve always been the one I leaned on.

Sorry,

For the void I created,

for the emptiness that now stretches between us,

like a chasm too wide to bridge,

too deep to fill.

I promise you, though.

I promise I’ll be there now,

before you even have to ask,

before the pain swells up inside you,

before the silence becomes too much.

I’ll be there. And I am here, always here.

I’ll stand with you in the quiet, to do nothing wrong.

I’ll hold your hand in the mess,

and I’ll try — try — to understand the world from your eyes,

to see the shadows you live with,

to share in the weight of your weary heart.

Sorry,

For not seeing sooner what you’ve been going through,

what your parents have faced.

I’m sorry we were the reason the cracks got wider,

I know now that we can’t survive without each other,

that we’re too intertwined, too bound by this strange thread…

I won’t let go.

I won’t walk away when things get hard.

Even when your behaviour, your actions change,

I’ll stand with you.

I’ll, even in the mess,

even when the world feels too heavy for either of us to carry.

I know I can’t fix it.

I know there are some things too broken to mend.

But I love you — fiercely, without reservation.

I’ll love you in the way you need,

without strings, without conditions, without expectations.

I’ll love you not to fill the silence, but to hold space for it, to let it breathe.

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find a way to make it through together.

I’ll do better.

For you. For all of us.

Always.

Maybe that’s all we have left.

Not answers, not some grand resolution.

Just this — just we, together standing here,

And me finally awake, finally aware, ready to walk beside you.

To try to live. be positive, even if it’s harder than we can bear.