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FAMILY
FAMILY

TREES
TREES

Written by Summer Liew Yi Qin

Awkward silences at family dinners.
It’s 10:30pm and you don’t have my back
to laugh around the dinner table
talk ‘bout how we were able

to raise our lucky stars and have them be so blinding
on the cold coffee table you brought to fill with your sports’ magazines
instead splattered with our constellations, their living expenses

the curtain that would let the sun shine upon your face,
sits still in the cobwebs as I lay in bed, feeling amazed
that the children you left
somehow has the courage to smile and say “I’m glad it was you who stayed.”
As I walk across the street which we once danced across

I wonder to myself
maybe it’s alright that I suffered from your loss
And maybe in this lifetime with this shattered family

I’ll never get to grant my dad’s wish to complete extravagant family trees
But maybe that’s alright, because with these eyes you brought tears to me
I no longer need an excuse to chase after the form of happiness
they perceive.

Illustration by Summer Liew Yi Qin
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