The Black Sheep, The Defective One

No matter what I tried to do for or with them,
The way they saw me never changed,
Not even when I made them smile longer,
Not even when I took the hits for them,
Not even when I tried to be stronger for them,
It was still the same emptiness and boredom,
Like I was never going to be a part of them,
No matter how hard I pushed myself.

I tried to shamelessly please them on a daily,
But each time it all backfired on me, I kept at it,
Almost like the universe wasn’t careful enough,
Like I was the burden that none could shoulder,
Like it was so easy to look at me and away,
And like the sun would never be kinder to me,
And I never understood at the time they did it,
That I was the black sheep, the defective child.

I came to learn later on how defective I was,
When I couldn’t be included in their gatherings,
When my food came differently than others,
When my laundry was done on the sidelines,
When my uniforms miraculously got torn up,
When my books began missing on exam days,
And for a moment it was a Cinderella moment,
Only that no Prince Charming was coming for me.

I thought it was because I was growing fast,
Because somehow, I was insecure of my body,
I thought they were letting me learn myself,
But they were not even bothered by all that,
It was almost like my pain was all in my head,
But I’d suffered enough at their hands to know,
That they were suffocating always coz of me,
So, they hated me for taking up space with them.

They said I had an insecure little mind,
They talked of me like a crazy ghost of the past,
Like they didn’t force me to set up the wards,
As if I hadn’t been a prisoner around them,
The one kid who stood out in the wrong ways,
The kid that wasn’t scared to fight back at them,
When words hurt more than they should’ve,
Perhaps that was why I got a mental admission.

But all I did was try to be enough them,
Try to mend relationships I didn’t break,
Try to shoulder some of their damn burdens,
Yet all they saw was a selfish egoistic sociopath,
Who knew nothing of love and deserved none it,
While they stayed unbothered by the chaos,
Funny how they left it on me, the black sheep,
The family reject who dared to survive family.