Jade McGlynn Poet Spoken Word

All of us

You think your lies are small things,
Quick words,
Easy cover.

But they don’t just vanish,
They land.

They land on your mother,
Smiling through cracks in her chest,
Because believing you is easier than admitting she can’t trust her own son.

They land on your brother,
Stone on the outside,
Shattered on the inside,
Because he sees through you and it breaks him every time.

They land on your sister,
Who laughs along with you,
But swallows doubt like glass cutting her throat.

They land on your partner,
Who lies awake beside you,
Feeling the distance stretch a thousand miles,
Even with your body right there.

They land on your child 
Too young to name it,
But already breathing in the shadow of your choices.

And they land on me.
Because I love you, 
As well as the family that who loves you,
And that means I carry this weight,
Whether I want to or not.

You stand in front of us,
Close enough to touch,
And still,
You lie.

Not vanished, not gone, not a ghost we can mourn.
But a presence we can’t trust.

Do you know how cruel that is?
To keep us near,
while cutting us open with your words?
To make us doubt,
Every look, every story,
Every “I’m fine” that drips from your mouth like poison?

We are angry.
We are tired.
We are bleeding from wounds you pretend don’t exist.

And yet, we still want you.
We want the truth.
We want the brother,
The son,
The father,
The partner,
The man who could stand here clean and truthful,
Instead of this hollowed-out version of you
built from smoke.

But don’t mistake our love for endlessness.
Hope gets heavy.
Trust runs out.
Every lie pushes us closer to the edge
Where caring turns into walking away.

We don’t want to lose you.
But you’re forcing us to wonder what’s left to hold onto.

So hear me:
You are not just hurting yourself.
You are unraveling all of us.
And if you don’t stop,
It won’t be your addiction that takes you,
It’ll be the silence we finally give back When the lies become too much to bear.

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